


Estuhl'uh Nash-Veh (Touch Me)

by jimkirkachu (burning_spirit)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Boys Kissing, Cat Spock (Star Trek), Cock Worship, Daydreaming, Embarrassment, Emotional Sex, Erotica, Explicit Sexual Content, Eye Sex, Five Year Mission, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff, French Kissing, Frottage, Gay Sex, Headcanon, Heavy Petting, Insecure James T. Kirk, Interspecies Romance, Intimacy, James T. Kirk Has Issues, James T. Kirk Loves Spock, James T. Kirk Speaks Vulcan, Kirk is hopelessly in love, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Making Love, Massage, Mild Language, Non-Linear Narrative, OTP Feels, POV First Person, Passion, Penises, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Five Year Mission, Pre-James T. Kirk/Spock, Pre-Slash, Romance, Self-Lubrication, Sensuality, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Sexually Assertive Spock, Space Husbands, T'hy'la, T'hy'la Bang, T'hy'la Bang 2020, Touch Telepathy, Touching, True Love, Vulcan Biology, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Culture, Vulcan Language, after work, genital sheath, genital sheath fingering, k/s - Freeform, lots of headcanons, otp, so in love it hurts, spirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24769456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_spirit/pseuds/jimkirkachu
Summary: Retired Starfleet captain James Kirk spends a long, dreary morning massaging the achy muscles and joints of his exhausted spouse.  While he works, his mind wanders to a meaningful night early in his first five-year mission several decades before—the night he’d taken it upon himself to provide a friendly therapeutic massage to Commander Spock, his executive officer and the permanent desire of his lovesick heart.  Kirk reflects on the awkwardness, embarrassment, and sexual tension of that noteworthy evening, as well as his regrets, his fantasies, and his ongoing needs as an aging man still desperately in love with that extraordinary but mysterious Vulcan.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/???, James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 62
Kudos: 67
Collections: T’hy’la Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the T’hy’la Bang 2020, which can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thyla2020/profile) on AO3 or [here](https://thylabang.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr (please check out the other stories and artworks being produced for the next several weeks, there is _enormous_ talent all over the place in this fandom and they all deserve so much love!!). I’d like to thank the moderators—[wearingmywings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearingmywings), [sciencebluefeelings](), and [museaway]()—for organizing everything; and my fellow participants (authors, artists, betas, pinch-hitters, everybody!) for building a lovely community of support, advice, and encouragement that lifted me up whenever I was in need.
> 
> Most especially, I want to thank my magnificent collaborator/illustrator, [marlinspirkhall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinspirkhall), for being so communicative, patient, motivating, kind, fun, talented, and generous. Check out the Art Masterposts [HERE on Tumblr](https://marlinspirkhall.tumblr.com/post/621285980052275200/estuhluh-nash-veh-touch-me) and [HERE on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792658)!! I am unspeakably grateful and lucky and humbled to have been paired up with their work ethic, wonderful gifts, and seemingly endless positivity—I truly don’t deserve you, dear, but I love and appreciate you so much!!!!! 💛💙💛💙💛💙
> 
> **NOTE: This is NOT a “love confessions,” “getting together,” OR “first time” story!!!**
> 
> Rated E for LOTS of sexual content (which is embedded intermittently throughout the text) and some mild language. My apologies to anyone who prefers to read only SFW content and skip love scenes, and to those who prefer to read only NSFW content and skip the rest.
> 
> Fair warning: I prefer to avoid using euphemisms in love scenes, so penises are penises and an anus is an anus in my stories. If that bothers you, turn back now!
> 
> This story includes a fairly hefty amount of head-canon backstory and characterization, so while I personally feel my obsessively specific ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive with actual canon, I do acknowledge that many of them are quite a stretch and/or they’re just not for everybody. If you dislike reading versions of Kirk and/or Spock who are somewhere between mildly canon-atypical and wildly out-of-character, continue at your own discretion.
> 
> Please refer to chapter end notes for Vulcan translations (which are also in hover text!) and more thoughts. :)
> 
> Special thanks to nettiegirl86, marlinspirkhall, and winonakirk57 for their absolutely invaluable beta services!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly, this fic was written as one long piece, and I still think of the bulk of it as a massive single scene, lol. For ease of readability, though, I’ve broken it up into chapters, but just know that most of those breaks don’t actually represent a change in scene or a lapsing of time. XD
> 
> Gorgeous art provided by the incomparable [marlinspirkhall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinspirkhall)!!

“Here?” I ask, timidly probing at what feels like a nasty knot in my spouse’s shoulder.

All I receive by way of response is a noncommittal grunt, which I take as an affirmation. The gray bedroom is otherwise quiet while I begin working, kneading sometimes mildly, sometimes vigorously at the muscles beneath my fingers.

The heavy fog outside the window of our high-rise lends a melancholy feeling of closeness to the room, making it seem stuffy and slightly chilly all at once. After a few minutes, I consider taking a quick break to hurry out to the living room and start up the fireplace before my absence is remarked upon. It wouldn’t do much by way of adding any _color_ to the immediate surroundings, but at least it would provide enough heat to reach us where we’re situated in front of the bedroom windows.

This is a fairly common thing I find myself doing; indeed, it has become almost a daily favor I perform for my partner. So, as my hands settle into the familiar rhythms of their task, my mind begins to wander just like it always does.

For a minute or two, I’m comfortably distracted by thoughts of chores that need to be done around the apartment, simple tasks like folding the laundry and watering the plants. But then I feel the pull of those memories, the magnetism that habitually disarms my shields and captures me, tugging me away from the benign things of my reality in a vibrant tractor beam blazing with the passionate heat of the past.

No. I know I have to resist losing myself to this nostalgia yet again. Lately, I’ve been caught fantasizing too many times by my mate, who has taken to suggesting that I mention to Dr. McCoy the increasing _absentmindedness_ which seems to be accompanying my _advancing age_.

I know better than to perpetuate any concerns about something as grievous as potential senility or dementia, especially since I know them to be unfounded. I know better than to indulge myself in boyish daydreams. But then, the world around me is so gray and dull… there’s not even anything out the window today to keep my focus away from flashes of smoldering mahogany eyes… firm, youthful skin stretched over that lean frame… the deliciously low and uninhibited moans of pleasure expressly brought on by my touch…

These are the same movements my hands once made on _him_. It began during my first five-year mission into deep space, which seems so long ago now. I can hardly believe how bold, naïve, and heedless of the risks I had been.

There he is in the fog before me, exactly the way he looked back then, and _oh_ , how my heart aches at the image. He was actual, total perfection, all slender, tall, powerful yet gentle beauty, every last millimeter of him. As it turned out, he was both the first and last person I ever truly fell in love with.

And I had touched him just like this. After only the first few hesitant circles I’d drawn at the base of his neck, I had known that the texture of his muscles, nerves, bones, and skin already had me more addicted than I could ever be to any drug or substance… not even a lifetime supply of premium Saurian brandy.

He was irresistible. Part of me can’t believe I’m plunging into my decades-old obsession, that desire he’d always stirred in me, while I’m supposed to be concentrating on my responsibilities as a husband. The rest of me, though, is happy as ever to snuggle into those intense, exciting memories, as if replaying them can somehow transport me back to the stars, back into that reasonably attractive body I used to have and the delicious tingly feelings that had permanently settled inside me with the knowledge that _he_ might be standing right there at my elbow any time I turned in my command chair on the bridge.

If I had any honor or decency, I would at least feel some small amount of disgrace at so willfully tuning out the present. But here I am dwelling on phantom visions of his exposed neck with its thin, cinnamon-orange veins waiting for and anticipating my caresses… the healthy sheen on his soft strands of hair the color of dark chocolate, so close they would quiver with my breaths… and always, _always_ the delicate peaks at the tops of his ears that would flush with pigment as I lovingly tended to his needs…

 _What’s the use of fighting this?_ I wonder. _You’ve always had the power to incapacitate my sense of reason._

The nerves in my fingertips feel almost electrified as the transition into my headspace nears completion.

_I can’t believe I’m touching you, after all this time._

I inhale deeply, still able to smell his unique and utterly arousing scent. The mere thought of him threatens to unravel me right here and now. Fighting to keep quiet, I bite my lips and force my weathered fingers to continue their work even as the intoxicating recollections suck me in.

_Spock…!_

Commander Spock, my first officer, the half-Vulcan scientist who laid claim to my heart and soul, never to return them to me. Commander Spock, the love of my life. His name has long been both a comfort and an aphrodisiac for my restless soul. I still ache for him just as badly as I did in those earliest months aboard the _Enterprise_.

_I have no regrets, Spock. I have never regretted allowing you and you alone to take the essence of everything I ever was or would become—to take me and keep me all to yourself to the end of your days._

Vaguely, something in the back of my head reminds me that I should be ashamed of myself. How could I, a married man, dare to stand here massaging a septuagenarian while fantasizing about a thirty-seven-year-old? I’m a sick old pervert, that’s what I am.

_But I still remember the first time you allowed me to touch you like this, my handsome space prince. Do you remember that day?_

It was only about six months after we’d departed from Earth on our long-term mission, and although I’d made eyes at Spock since day one, I’d never yet dared to initiate physical contact with anything more than friendly, workplace-appropriate courtesy.

I had long since been cured of ever hoping to get back together with Carol. If I hadn’t so dearly treasured the periodic updates about David which she begrudgingly sent at my insistence, I would have been just as happy never to have seen or spoken to her again, and the feeling was unambiguously mutual. I wished every day, of course, that I could have played a bigger role… _any_ role in my son’s life, but with even a few weeks’ distance from the planet where his mother still lived, I had already realized I hadn’t merely been hurt by and angry with her for those four or five years—I had, in fact, never actually loved her at all. Not truly.

I’d come close to admitting that much to myself in the years between her calling off our engagement and my ascending to the rank of captain. But in the aftermath of what Carol had done to us, to me, I’d sworn off the whole idea of falling in love and had every intention of being permanently married to my work and to whichever ship I happened to climb aboard. No one had caught my interest during my terms aboard the _Republic_ and the _Farragut_ to test my disavowal of love, so when I assumed command of the _Enterprise_ I had neither the expectation of nor the desire for anyone but the flagship herself to take up residence in my heart. She was a magnificent beauty, after all, and although I knew my commission might someday change, I was secure in the knowledge that _she_ would never do the leaving in our affair.

But the very first moment I set my eyes upon a certain pointy-eared science officer, however, I knew trouble had found me again after those few years’ reprieve. When I started to fall for Mr. Spock—whose picture I definitely should have spent more time studying before jauntily declaring him my first officer without ever having met him—I fell quickly and I fell hard.

It had been a very long time since I’d been romantically interested in a man, and the few crushes I’d had on boys in my young life were just as fruitless as the ones I’d had on everyone else. In other words, no one—male, female, or otherwise—ever took notice of me until my studiousness started to pay off and it became clear I’d be climbing the ranks faster than anyone in Starfleet’s history. Naturally, though, by that point, the people who wanted to cozy up to me were only attracted by my potential power and influence, not by my personality. In the end, even Carol had finally admitted she’d never wanted a husband, but rather “a disposable sperm donor with decent genes.”

Spock, however… Spock was different.

 _Thank God you were different_ , I think. _You were my knight in science blue._

It was around the six-month mark that I made my earliest attempts to try and plant the seed in Spock’s mind of possibly opening up our interactions for more than just work and the occasional game of chess. By that point in our professional relationship and our moderately close friendship, I had come to depend on him in almost every way I could think of, with the exception of the amorous way I so longed to add to the list. He was an exemplary officer, the sharpest scientific mind I’d ever known, ethical to a fault and willing to bend the rules if it meant doing the right thing. He was gentle and understanding, compassionate, good-natured, and good-humored (to the surprise of seemingly everyone but me). His logic was stark but flawless; his counsel and his intuition had already saved individual crew members or the entire ship multiple times during my short tenure.

In those brief one hundred and eighty or so days, I fell thoroughly, irrevocably in love with him. Furthermore, I became convinced that if he wasn’t the person I would spend the rest of my life with, I would rather be alone than live a lie by pretending to care for anyone else.

 _I still feel that way_ , I think, my eyes shut tight and heart pounding as my hands manipulate my spouse’s shoulder.

Of course, by that time he not only knew me better than anyone ever had before—I could also read him more accurately than anyone else on the ship could. We had become comfortable enough with each other to spot (or occasionally even _sense_ ) when something was off. We knew each other’s moods and body language, we knew each other’s communication styles, preferred tasks aboard the ship, career aspirations, workout regimens, dietary likes and dislikes… everything right down to our usual personal hygiene schedules. Ours was already a deeply intimate familiarity which most married couples I’d known wouldn’t have been able to boast of, and our warp-speed bonding as the commanding officers of the ship was only a small part of our connection (a fact which gave me no small amount of titillated satisfaction).

Naturally, then, I could tell when my first officer was stressed. He had an adorable way of dismissing any of the physical repercussions that come along with a lack of sleep, an overload of work, a traumatizing mission, or a locking of horns with a colleague. He very much wished and intended that the crew and I all believe his body was a machine, one which could operate indefinitely at maximum capacity, provided it eventually rested and was properly maintained. But I and my other senior officers were never so naïve as to actually buy that nonsense: a Vulcan body may be more efficient than a Human one, but it still requires regular meals, adequate sleep, stress relief, and all those other good things that our Academy professors and parental figures alike so often reminded us were necessary for any living organism to stay healthy and happy.

 _I remember that day and that evening so very clearly_ , I think.

At the time, I was thoroughly mired right in the thick of my obsessive crush on Mr. Spock, frustrated from having sworn to myself I would never make a move because it would have been improper and unprofessional, given my rank. I admit that, yes, during our bridge shifts, my quiet, desperate, aching attention strayed to him too frequently and lingered on him too long when there was nothing more exciting going on than a few reports coming my way to read through and approve. But my having fallen deeply and hopelessly in love with the commander aside, it was clear to most everyone on the bridge that day that our chief science officer was… not himself.

It had been a long shift for Spock. There was a wildly volatile experiment with antimatter ongoing in the physics lab, and as the senior and therefore supervising officer he’d made ten or twelve trips back and forth between there and the bridge. His trusty mask of practiced indifference had gradually given way over the course of the hours to what looked like growing annoyance, frustration, and possibly just exhaustion, plain and simple.

The first few times he’d returned to the bridge, I made a point of asking him (either from my chair or close enough to him at his station that I could smell his divine aftershave) how the tests and trials were getting along. His disposition had been, as usual, pleasantly neutral in the morning. But when I checked in with him the fifth or sixth time, his jaw visibly clenched, his eyebrows came together in irritation, and he took in an abnormally large breath before he seemed to remember himself, relaxing his facial muscles and exhaling calmly instead of letting out the exasperated sigh I suspect he’d been tempted toward.

For the remainder of our shift, I refrained from touching base with him after his periodic trips to the lab. It was apparent that the experiment was not getting along as smoothly as hoped, antimatter being notorious for causing all sorts of complications. Although it also clearly wasn’t a total disaster—as that would have triggered an alert, or at least had my second-in-command reporting the particulars to me—it _was_ progressively giving Spock the outward symptoms of a tension headache, muscle fatigue, and irritability.

Since we all knew he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting to experiencing any amount of pain stemming from such a banal source, I had learned to keep an eye out for Spock’s subtler nonverbal giveaways whenever I knew he was under duress. By then I had come to identify several of the little _tells_ that his body would clandestinely broadcast without his conscious mind necessarily even being aware of them, signals that he was reaching the end of his proverbial rope and would do well to step back and relax a little.

Possibly the most frequent and easily-observable of those signals was the tension he’d carry in his arms, shoulders, and neck. Especially when he rose from his chair at his station to hunch over his scanner—a position I’ve always found almost unbearably difficult to turn away from (and which proved to be most inconvenient for my productivity in more ways than one)— whenever he was abnormally fatigued, he would spend that time actually leaning his elbows on the console for support. And when he was back in his seat, or standing to report information to me, or walking beside me in the corridor, he would involuntarily indicate tiredness with a strained rolling of his shoulders, periodic and otherwise uncharacteristic rubbing at the side of his neck, or a tilting back and forth of his head accompanied by a clenched jaw.

That day, he’d begun doing every one of those things before noon even came around. At one point, on returning from another laboratory babysitting session later in our shift, as he lowered his slender, lithe, usually-graceful body into his chair more heavily than I’d ever seen, I swore I saw him shut his eyes and let out a little sigh. His hand even went up to massage his forehead. I recall that detail vividly because it had me thinking about how much I would have loved to massage that beautiful pale skin for him, gently sliding my hands beneath his silken curtain of dark bangs, maybe quietly brushing them aside so my lips could press against him and somehow channel my love and wishes for healing directly into his body and mind.

 _Yes, James_ , I imagined him saying, his voice resonating surprisingly realistically in my head. _I need you… I need your comfort. Please… stay with me, do not allow me to be alone with this humiliating pain I am too proud to admit feeling… Stay with me when we leave the bridge…_

“Captain?” a yeoman said at my right elbow ( _Spock’s place_ , I thought), snapping me out of the heavy-lidded stupor my eyes had slipped into.

I cleared my throat and straightened my back, faking a yawn to indicate fatigue—even though I was wide awake and had simply lost myself in my vivid, unintentionally romantic daydream. Giving the yeoman a haphazard smile, I took the datapadd and stylus they were offering me, skimming the contents of the report with only a fraction of my attention. I signed the padd with a few careless flicks of the wrist, handed it back to the young crew member, and noticed as they walked away that, behind them, my first officer had swiveled his chair around and was watching me with his lovely dark eyes.

My smile widened on my face as I relished the first proper eye contact we’d had all day, silently inviting, _begging_ his gaze to cover me and probe me and see everything I was obligated by my position to conceal from him. It was a look I gave him every chance I got. By that point, I was desperate for him to infer from my flirtations and my yearning glances that I was painfully in love with him. My foolish hope was that he himself might then bring up the subject on one of our dates (as I had shamelessly taken to thinking of our one-on-one sessions of friendly discussions or recreation) and either put me out of my misery for good or—I hardly dared hope—confess his reciprocal affection and claim me as his own.

After all, I had vowed never to make the first move, not to avoid sending overt signals encouraging _him_ to do so.

Spock’s jaw clenched then, and he turned his eyes down to the floor as he pivoted to his console and resumed working.

I watched him for a few more seconds, rapturously taking in the slope of his shoulders and the long elegance of his gorgeous hands as they danced over the various buttons on his console. Reminding myself that I was likely being too obvious and it wouldn’t do to have any of the bridge crew catching me staring at the science officer, I turned to the river of stars and planetoids flowing by on the viewscreen and crossed one leg over the other. My body was tense as I got more and more restless for our shift to be over. I wanted _out_ of that chair, I wanted to be alone in the turbolift with Spock so I could perhaps be so bold as to ask him for a private meeting in his quarters.

After all, I had dealt with the symptoms of stress and anxiety for most of my life, and I also knew Spock well enough to know that if I asked him directly about his condition, he would deny experiencing any discomfort and categorically refuse to visit McCoy in sickbay. Who better, then, to accompany him back to his cabin and help guide him through some stress-relieving techniques? I needed my first officer, chief scientist, and most intelligent crew member to be at peak efficiency on duty, so—as I assured myself—my decision to request an audience to try and help him unwind was purely for his own personal and professional well-being.

Yes. _Yes_ , this was a _good_ idea. I was merely concerned for Spock’s health and for his ability to carry out his responsibilities in as exemplary a fashion as he always did. Going to his quarters wouldn’t be like torturing myself at all, no matter what Bones had to say about my willfully, deliberately spending as much time as possible with the subject of my unrequited love.

What the doctor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vulcan translations:
> 
>  _estuhl_ = to touch  
>  _‘uh_ = suffix used to form imperative  
>  _nash-veh_ = me, I  
>  _**Estuhl'uh nash-veh_ = Touch me
> 
> *Translations taken from the Vulcan Language Dictionary at https://www.starbase-10.de/vld/ and korsaya.org
> 
> **These are phrases I attempted to construct on my own, based on the VLD and korsaya.org resources, so take them with several grains of salt as I am not fluent in Vulcan. If I’ve completely butchered the grammar and/or vocabulary, please let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful art provided by the inestimable [marlinspirkhall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinspirkhall)!!

Another half hour or so elapsed, but given how near it was to the end of our shift it felt like those thirty minutes lasted a year. Mr. Sulu spotted a lonely asteroid on his display at one point, so there was a brief bit of excitement at the prospect of making an interesting discovery of some sort, but it turned out to be just another mid-sized, run-of-the-mill rock wandering on its merry way across the galaxy. Nothing new, nothing weird or worthy of research. Otherwise things were uneventful as we cruised and mapped a few more regions of new and featureless space.

“Not that I’m complaining,” I said a while later to my favorite Vulcan, internally reveling at successfully getting to share the turbolift with him and no one else. Lieutenant Rahda had arrived promptly to take over the center seat a few minutes prior, and I’d loitered at Spock’s console to chat with him until he was ready to leave the bridge. It was our unspoken agreement by then that whichever one of us was done with his work first at shift change would hang around and wait for the other so we could discuss any number of things on the ride down to our deck.

“I’m always grateful,” I went on, “for any day that goes by around here without any incidents or injuries.” I switched from holding the turbolift handle on my right to gripping the control immediately behind Spock’s shoulder to my left. And I told myself it was because my dominant hand was sore from signing reports all day, that it had nothing to do with childishly wanting to be just that little bit closer to touching him.

“Indeed,” Spock said noncommittally—even more noncommittally than was his wont.

I admit I was distracted, recklessly imagining what his lean shoulder might feel like if I placed my palm on it and slowly ran my hand around onto his back and up toward his neck. Maybe my fingertips would accidentally breach the collar there and graze his skin. Then maybe they would accidentally slide right up into his flawless, satiny hair, something they’d itched and burned to do since the first time I ever laid eyes on him. It was the softest-looking stuff in the whole universe. It would probably feel to my rough hands like the finest Andorian silk sheets, or the pure rushing water of a cool mountain stream… if only I could confirm my hypothesis by just reaching up and—

 _Jim, please_ , I somehow vividly imagined him whispering, _do not tempt me with such worshipful tenderness unless you truly plan to act on it._

When I came to and realized I was biting my lip again and lewdly staring at his oh-so-alluring nape, I was relieved to find that Spock seemed to be none the wiser to my ogling.

At the same time, however, it pained me to see that my beautiful first officer’s eyes were shut in the slightest wince, which, for a Vulcan, was tantamount to shrieking in downright agony. Now that I was paying better attention, I also noticed that his posture was very poor compared to his usual proud, dignified stance. Fatigue was written all over him, without a doubt. I just hoped that I would be able to help, even if only in some small way.

“Hey,” I murmured in as gentle a tone as I could manage. I didn’t even care if he noticed how far into his personal space I’d ventured; I wanted him to understand how concerned I was for him, and not just because he was the best scientist in the fleet.

Spock seemed prepared to ignore me, but I waited to speak until he opened his eyes and met my gaze. It’s likely that his pupils weren’t actually dilating and I just hallucinated that they were (the heartsick Human mind tends to see what it wants to see, after all), so I remained steadfast and somber.

“I assume you’re planning to meditate for a while before dinner?” I said. At his miniscule nod, I went on. “Would it be alright if I came in for a few minutes before you do? You can say no, of course,” I added quickly if not a tad disappointedly. “I can always stop by at a more convenient time if you prefer.”

His jaw clenched in what looked like irritation, or perhaps it was just a further manifestation of his exhaustion. I couldn’t say I blamed him for the reaction: it had been a long and, evidently, frustrating day for him, and just when he’d thought he was about to be freed for the evening, his commanding officer had requested something more of him.

I was tempted for a moment to be discouraged by his begrudging manner, but then I remembered he had no way of knowing that I was asking for a social call as a friend rather than a business visit as a colleague.

“It’s not for anything work-related, if that makes a difference,” I said, unable to bear the annoyed set of his chin and the silent strain indicated by his closed eyes.

I gawked at his dark, sweeping eyelashes ( _so delicate… would be so soft against my lips_ , I thought before I could stop myself), hoping I hadn’t just piled more unpleasantness onto my friend’s drooping shoulders. But then those lashes lifted an infinitesimal amount from his striking cheeks and his regal jawline released its tension.

As it happened almost every single time I looked at Spock, I had the thought that I could just stare at and study his face forever. Even if I had a billion years, a _trillion_ years, I knew I would never get my fill of those exquisite features shifting, reacting to stimuli, expressing so much more of the emotion within than he meant for them to. Then again, I was probably quite a bit more attuned to his gestures’ subtleties than the other Humans on board, given how much time I spent with him and the far more generous proximity he afforded to me over anyone else.

Also not for the first time, my heart stammered at the potential implications of the allowances he granted exclusively to me. It hadn’t escaped my notice that he seldom tolerated physical contact with anyone but myself. Indeed, his occasional, _almost_ undetectable (and no doubt unintentional) leaning into my touch had been the aggravating catalyst of countless hours of insomnia… and, yes, wholly inappropriate yet nonetheless rapturous hours of self-pleasure.

“You are always welcome in my quarters,” Spock said, his voice low and sensual to my desperate ears. He had opened his eyes again but they remained downcast, trained unseeing on my boots.

It felt as if he was intentionally making a romantic or suggestive invitation, and my brain was having a hell of a time processing the signals it had just received from my ears. After several seconds, during which I fought to maintain my composure in the wake of his intimate statement, I risked a glance and found that he was still every bit as calm and assured as when he’d blurted it out. From his poise, any Human might have thought he was simply being business-like by treating the subject of his unrestricted accessibility to me as a foregone conclusion.

Now, had _I_ said something like that to _him_ (as I had in so many of my indulgent fantasies), I would have instantly bugged my eyes out, turned the color of our engineers’ uniforms, and tripped all over myself trying to qualify the implication as being within the boundaries of professional decorum. But my commander was as cool as a tall, dark, unbearably lovely cucumber.

As it was, I stood there with my eyes glazing over, barely able to believe what I’d just heard. I was always welcome?

…In his _quarters?!_

I considered telling him to reach over and pinch me, but right then he brought his eyes up to look directly into mine and I was struck speechless all over again. By the time I inhaled, the turbolift door swooshed open and I’d lost my opportunity to ask him to clarify just what he’d meant.

Spock took four or five steps forward, his strides slower, more leisurely than usual. Then he turned and looked at me over his shoulder, that eyebrow I adored rising on his forehead and the vaguest whisper of a smirk dancing at the side of his mouth.

“Are you accompanying me, then?” he said. “…Captain?”

His words broke me out of my reverie and I realized I was still standing against the back wall of the lift, staring after him with my mouth gaping open like an Edosian suckerfish. Smoothing my hands down my front, I cleared my throat and followed him just about as clumsily as ever. I felt like a jumpy cadet who had a crush on his sexy, mysterious lab partner.

Suddenly, I was too embarrassed to make eye contact anymore. When I reached his side, I gestured with a nod of my head for Spock to fall into step with me, which he did.

 _It would be so easy, so natural_ , my entirely unhelpful libido supplied. _Just let your hand stray a few more centimeters toward him and slip your fingers into his. He’s certainly close enough for it._

__

We made our way down the Deck 5 corridor in silence while I wondered what might really, _actually_ happen if I was bold enough to do such a thing. My overactive imagination tormented me further by conjuring Spock’s syrupy baritone (and a host of spine-tingling visuals) with alarming clarity yet again.

 _I would welcome the touch of your hand in mine with enthusiasm_ , my dream-Spock purred. _In fact, I have long coveted all those who have experienced the undoubtedly supple, warm skin of your fingers for themselves. I desire the chance to explore your hands, arms, chest, mouth, your entire body with my own touch… with my lips, and my tongue…_

Thank God we arrived at the door to Spock’s quarters then, because the unexpectedly erotic turn my thoughts had taken was inopportune as well as startlingly compelling.

He pressed his thumb to the lock panel, the doors swishing open a moment later. There was a painful exchange on the threshold, then, when I stood waiting for him to enter first—they were his quarters, after all—and he stood signaling with his eyes that I should precede him. It got worse when we each realized the other was being stubborn and finally decided to cave, both of us moving toward the doorway at the same time, nearly bumping elbows in our awkwardness. I let out a nervous laugh, internally raking myself over the coals for being such a prize buffoon.

Before I knew what had happened, Spock’s hand was on the small of my back and he was softly pushing me ahead of him into the office side of his stateroom.

In the time it took for me to blink, I thought I’d been looking directly at a stunning pair of pale, long-fingered hands cradling a golden-tanned back with plush hips, bringing two naked torsos as close together as possible. As if my hormones weren’t already raging, my loins tightened at the mirage— _just_ the added hassle I needed in that moment.

My face was redder than a phaser blast at maximum power, I was just certain of it. I could _feel_ the heat of my cheeks burning everything that was left of my dignity right out of me. Spock’s touch was magical, and I didn’t even care how big of a starry-eyed sap it made me to feel that way. And to think, I had always hated the fact that my uniform shirts had a tendency to shrink in the laundry and ride up in the back. In that moment, I couldn’t have been more grateful for it; as we walked even just those few steps, his pinky finger slipped beyond the hem and made direct contact with my skin, right over my spinal cord, just north of my waistband.

In the grand scheme of things, it really shouldn’t have been such a big deal. We had touched each other before, obviously. But there were several inherent differences between a protecting or steadying grasp of a forearm during a dangerous landing mission and, well, an essentially gratuitous caress in the midst of a chivalrous gesture… after hours and in his private quarters. Sure, it was mere happenstance that his skin had actually met mine, but his hand resting on such an intimate part of my body in the first place was no accident. Even with the abnormal level of closeness and comfort we had with one another (for a command team, anyway), that was an unexpectedly _familiar_ touch.

_Stars help me._

I heard the door slide shut behind us and felt my anxiety rise at the knowledge that we were finally completely alone together. It was so tempting to pull his hand and arm the rest of the way around my waist and turn myself in toward his body. What I wouldn’t have given to have that “old married couple” brand of mutual yearning and love between us, to be free to nestle against him whenever I needed and know that he wanted and enjoyed it as much as I would.

Far too soon, his touch left me and the cloud of loneliness I’d grown thoroughly acquainted with resettled over my heart. I reminded myself that the feelings I had for him would never be reciprocated. My dreams of leaning into Spock, having his arms hold me tight, inhaling the scent of his skin, feeling his hands in my hair and his lips on my forehead—they were all just dreams. Even if he might someday return the smallest fraction of the affection I felt for him, the logistical complications of a captain becoming romantically involved with _anyone_ in his crew, even someone as near in rank as his second in command, would be too ethically problematic for either of us to actually pursue a relationship.

“What is it you wished to discuss?”

While I’d been depressing myself with my hopeless fantasies, Spock had stepped to his desk and turned to face me. He looked calmer now, less pained than he had on the bridge, his eyes unguarded and his painted lips very nearly trespassing into the realm of a smile. I assumed it was merely an act, that he was forcing himself to appear livelier than he truly felt. He was, after all, fiercely protective of both my peace of mind and his own reputation for having indestructible stamina. His beautiful left hand rested atop his computer monitor, his right hiding behind his back.

Unbidden, I imagined how perfectly svelte and charming he would be in an old-fashioned Earth tuxedo with long coattails and a sparkling boutonniere. Oh, to see him extend his bent elbow to me, waiting for me to take his arm and be ushered onto a dance floor where he would sweep me off my feet with his graceful movements and passionate, piercing gaze.

He cleared his throat politely, the corners of his mouth definitely pulling upward at my blatant woolgathering.

Shaking my head and blinking my daydreams out of my eyes, I came to the unexpected realization that I had absolutely no clue how to go about convincing my science officer to let me try and alleviate some of the physical and mental tension he’d suffered through all day. I couldn’t just blurt out the fact that I’d noticed his building stress; he would probably find that embarrassing or insulting, since he was so proud of his ability to control and camouflage his emotions. No, I had to come up with a more delicate way of offering him my assistance. But if I just asked him outright whether he’d like me to help him loosen up, he would surely dismiss my concerns and insist that he would be fine once he’d meditated for a while.

My time was up, though. I had to improvise, and I had to do it quickly lest he become suspicious of me.

As I frequently concluded during similar forays into the unknown in the line of duty, it seemed just as true then as it did on any of our exploratory missions that actions would speak louder than words possibly could. Besides which, I had no words anyway. My throat had gone dry and my heart was beating so loudly that I likely couldn’t have put together a coherent sentence to save my life. Spock’s sheer charm and sophistication precluded that kind of rational thought, especially with the entirety of his hypnotizing attention focused on _me_.

And _heavens_ , he was just so _perfect_ standing there in the low lighting, so tall and thin and mysterious and companionable and amused. The lines around his mouth where his tiny smiles tended to be most evident were impeccably suited to the rest of his face: subtle, yes, but welcoming and sweet. I was captivated by the chiseled slopes of his brows and his stylish eye makeup, his unbelievably high cheekbones, his pink lipstick, his firm square jaw, his shiny hair. My fingers twitched, wanting so badly to touch it, to touch _him_ , so I balled my fidgety hands into fists at my sides in the nervous habit I’d only recently discovered I’d developed whenever I felt uncontrollably tempted to reach out to him.

I wondered if he had any idea how hard I’d fallen for him, or how blistered and scalded I had been by the thrilling crucible his very existence had become to my self-control. I wondered if he knew how easy he had made it to fall for him, how natural and pleasant and _wonderful_ it felt to imagine him lying in bed with me, holding me, kissing me, entering me, completing me. Every last thing about him called to me, drawing me toward him unconsciously like a pleasant flame beckoned to an unsuspecting moth.

His lovable little grin just waited, waited for me to decide what I was going to do. There was no possible way he hadn’t figured me out. He was more perceptive and deductive than anyone I had ever known, and even the less intellectual of my past pursuits had told me how transparent my (inevitably unrequited) affections for them had been. Yet Spock didn’t seem interested in being cruel or teasing about my puppy love. It wasn’t in his nature to be teasing, and there wasn’t a cruel bone in his body.

And I knew I didn’t have the gentlest touch to caress him, or the softest body to receive him, or anything near the degree of grace or refinement or attractiveness that he deserved to be treated with—and mated to. But if I could simply have one chance to show him just how desperately I loved him, how much I ached for him and worshiped him… it probably wouldn’t earn me any returned passion or devotion from him, but at least he would know how cherished and adored he was.

 _There is not a fiercer hell_ , something whispered inside my mind, _than the failure in a great object._

Indeed, if Mr. Spock wasn’t a thing of beauty guaranteed to be a joy forever, then I didn’t know who was.

I cleared my throat unnecessarily, considering I still had no intention of actually allowing myself to speak. Anything I might have said would have been asinine, so I conjured the mellowest smile I could and made my billionth attempt to say, with only my eyes, _I love you more than anything else in this universe, Spock_. My right hand extended, indicating the chair on the guest side of his desk, the one in which I myself usually sat when I had the privilege of being in his quarters.

The abnormal nonverbal request that he sit in what was generally my spot had the commander lifting his eyebrow in curiosity. One of the things I always loved about Spock was his patient willingness to trust me even when I hadn’t yet explained my intentions, his loyal obedience which I could only assume stemmed from his penchant for scientific inquiry. He was no doubt wondering to himself what in the world I had eaten or drank that day that had me behaving so strangely, yet his consistent readiness to play my games by my rules had him obliging my whim, if only to see what insanity might result from it.

With the grace of a nimble gazelle, Spock walked to the indicated chair and seated himself. As he did so, he pivoted the swiveling bulk of it along with his body to face me, his eyes continuing to signal his fascination.

I could hardly believe it, but he was down. His cute backside was in the chair. His neck and shoulders were even with my torso, the perfect height for what I had planned.

The whole thing seemed surreal. While my consciousness floated above the scene, my legs brought me around to where I was facing his desk and would have been standing behind the Vulcan, had he not rotated accordingly to watch my every movement. Another broad, silent extending of my arm and a nod of my head convinced him to spin back around until he was also pointed toward his desk and the crimson-curtained bedroom I simply could not afford to think about.

Stepping close enough behind him to see the individual strands of his hair that fluttered in the wake of my exhalations, I swallowed hard, bit my lower lip, and suppressed the urge to dip my entire face to his scalp and just soak up his glorious scent. It was the moment of truth. I didn’t even bother pushing my sleeves up, just in case he ended up being disgusted by me and throwing me out of his quarters.

Unclenching my fists, I took in a giant calming breath and summoned all the courage that had gained me the captaincy. I brought my hands up to hover just above the nape of Spock’s neck, right around the spot where he could incapacitate a foe with a mere pinch (a move I very much wished to learn through practice with him, less because I actually wanted to use it on attackers and more because it would involve both of us getting to touch each other).

I must have hesitated longer than I realized, because when I finally got up the nerve to place my hands on him, my first officer turned his head some sixty degrees to the left, attempting to see what it was that I was doing. Something moved in my peripheral vision; it was his foot. He was planting his feet to swivel around, which I immediately knew would deal a shattering blow to my already crumbling resolve.

“Jim, what—”

Spock’s words cut off as abruptly as they’d begun when my fingers landed on his shoulders.

Commander Spock. I was touching _Spock_. I was _touching_ him off duty, in his quarters, and with, admittedly, less than completely pure intentions. Time seemed to disappear, the way passing stars and galaxies turn to streaks and then vanish at high enough warp speeds. I was simultaneously frozen in that one moment and reeling from the inexplicable sensation of catapulting through the entirety of the space-time continuum all at once; my whole body was utterly still and yet I was nearly motion sick from the infinite celestial expanses whirling through my mind.

“ _James_.”

San Francisco. Current body. Real life. My memory collapses at the sound of my spouse complaining that my wrinkled hands have stopped moving. I shake my head rapidly to dispel the haze of my daydream.

“Ah, sorry honey,” I say, clearing my throat to cover any embarrassment in my voice at my preoccupation.

Noting that at least my fantasizing has warmed me up, I pull my arms back a little to push the sleeves of my bathrobe up to my elbows and wring my hands together. They’re achy from the drizzly weather. Bones has declared several times that I’m showing no signs of arthritis, and I hate to doubt any of his professional evaluations but I can feel the change of seasons in my joints just like Grandpa Kirk used to claim he could.

Well, there’s nothing I can do about it right this minute.

“Are you cold? Do you want me to turn on the fireplace?” I offer.

“No.”

My eyes search the gray cloud of mist out the window—the screen onto which I’d been projecting my flashback. But it’s blank now, just a featureless expanse of opaque moisture where the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay ought to be.

“I was planning,” I say, “to walk to the store for our groceries this afternoon, but unless the sun comes around and burns off all this fog…”

My chitchat is acknowledged with a noncommittal grunt, so I decide to keep my mouth shut. _Moody today_ , I think.

Apart from my knuckles popping as I flex my fingers, the room is quiet. Hardly any time passes at all before my kneading motions against those soft shoulders become hypnotic enough to let me slip back into the interrupted scene from so long ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” and “there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object” are both taken from _[Endymion](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24280/24280-h/24280-h.htm)_ by John Keats (from line 1, Book I; and the Preface, respectively).


	3. Chapter 3

When I shut my eyes and focus, I can still feel the strong, hard muscles of the handsome young Vulcan under that first ungainly—but universe-halting—touch of my hands. I’d told myself that his flinching was just an instinctual response, it was nothing to worry about because he was simply taken by surprise. To my knowledge, Spock wasn’t accustomed to being touched excessively, or without some kind of life-saving motive or other.

He was definitely sitting up straighter since I’d plopped my hands on him. His spine straightened and went rigid, his body went still, his head froze in its half turn toward me.

I mentally recited the assurance that he was only startled and he would relax in a moment. It would all be okay once he knew what I was doing. Yes, it would be perfectly fine in a minute or so.

In the meantime, I knew it wasn’t putting him at ease to have me looming behind him with my hands limply burdening his already strained shoulders. After all, this was supposed to be about making his yoke lighter, not heavier or more awkward. For starters, I shyly began to move my thumbs in tiny little circles where a Human’s first and second thoracic vertebrae would be. I thought maybe that would get the both of us more comfortable with this new paradigm of intimate contact.

Naturally, I couldn’t exactly feel a whole lot through his blue tunic. Although breathable, durable, waterproof, and lightweight, xenylon was actually a rather thick fabric, so it was difficult to tell with any certainty whether I’d happened to select a good tense spot to begin or whether he felt fine there and could use some attention elsewhere.

(My incorrigible brain supplied the extremely inconvenient suggestion that the front of Spock’s pants could probably use some attention. I bit my lip and forced the image from my mind.)

Widening the positions of my hands by a few centimeters—but keeping them symmetrically equidistant from the center line of his body—I let my fingers splay out and anchor themselves in the fabric over Spock’s shoulders proper. I wanted my still fairly light pressure to convey to him that he was free to question or put a stop to my actions at any point, but also that if he was content to let me proceed, I intended to be thorough, albeit gentle.

Never having had the opportunity before to really get a sense of the texture of a Vulcan’s musculoskeletal structure, the intellectual portion of my brain was enjoying this new information. The race’s privacy over such matters as anatomy and physiology had irritated the other members of the Federation for as long as the intergalactic alliance had existed, physicians in particular bearing the brunt of the frustration over the enduring mysteries of the tight-lipped species’ inner workings. Their cultural aversion to exposing even the most remotely personal knowledge to outworlders had, as one’s native customs do, taken root in Mr. Spock just as it had in the heart of every other Vulcan in recorded Federation history. He was no more eager to share his people’s fiercely guarded biological blueprints than any denizen of his home planet: they all seemed to have agreed at some point in their history that details of Vulcan biology were to be released to non-Vulcans exclusively on a need-to-know basis, and even then only when the need to know was absolutely dire.

Despite my overwhelming nervousness, I smirked at a mental image of Bones literally hopping mad over my getting to probe and explore even such a small portion of Spock’s mysterious body so much more thoroughly than he himself had ever been allowed to, his status as a medical professional generally earning him no points whatsoever with our stoic first officer. I was quickly approaching a familiarity with the Vulcan form which would put my knowledge base at least on par with McCoy’s, although still considerably humble compared to Dr. M’Benga’s. I grinned again at the reminder that Spock wasn’t the only one responsible for keeping Bones in the dark: one of his own medical staff was even in on the conspiracy.

_I hope you intend to maintain that Vulcan confidentiality yourself, Jim_ , Spock’s voice said humorously in my mind. It was a little startling to hear him when I hadn’t yet consciously intended to have my mental imitation of him joking around with me about the whole idea. For a few seconds I thought perhaps I was going insane, but my brain _was_ rather in a stir over getting to be so close to Spock and getting to touch him that it must have just been a big gray scrambled egg at that point. Apparently my imagination really was running away with me.

About thirty seconds had elapsed since I’d at last gotten brave enough to make contact with my science officer’s body. He had gradually turned his head back around to face his desk, and I hesitated in my motions as he inhaled a long, deep breath. I prayed that he wasn’t preparing to throw me out of his cabin, but just in case he was, I eased off the pressure from my fingers without removing my hands from him.

When he exhaled, his torso actually reclined toward me in the chair, his shoulders sagged a little, and his neck bent forward as if to grant me better access to his sore muscles.

Surely it was too good to be true. I stood stock still in my shock and disbelief at the thought that the breathtaking, fiercely private, and coolly stoic commander of my ship was apparently not only _allowing_ me to massage him but _encouraging_ me as well. How could such a miracle be happening? And to _me_ , of all people?

I would mull over all those things later, I decided, when I was alone in my own quarters, wiggling restlessly in my own bed. In the moment, it was far more exciting to push analytical thoughts aside and simply enjoy the marvelous privilege I had brazenly reached my hands toward and—by whatever act of God, nature, luck, or the universe—actually managed to obtain.

Spock’s muscles were so _dense_. It was common knowledge that Vulcan strength was, on average, roughly three times that of Humans, but not many Earthlings (even members of Starfleet) had a practical understanding of _how_ the generally tall and slim species could possibly store all that power in such efficient, sleek bodies. Humans who demonstrated greater than normal levels of brawn tended to be easy to spot, what with the enlarged, bulging muscles that came with rigorous weight training and our particular metabolisms. As such, it was all but unfathomable to most Terrans that our pointy-eared Federation neighbors could not only outperform the very strongest of our kind by a factor of at least two, but also that they did so with total _ennui_ , with their customary air of graceful elegance, and with utterly counterintuitive slenderness.

The more comfortable I became with the situation, the more I understood the answer to the riddle of Vulcan power. I wasn’t sure how he managed to walk around all the time with such thick, heavy muscles, but evidently Spock was perfectly well acclimated to it. The texture of all the tissues I was kneading was less sinuous and more like a plane of sturdy but grainy rock. There was a certain amount of pliancy to them, of course, but by comparison my own neck and shoulders felt like gelatin.

I got a little concerned since my rhythmic motions digging into him barely seemed to have any effect. Bringing my hands closer to the center of his back, I found a particularly stiff semi-rectangular area over his spine and pressed my thumbs into it almost as hard as I could.

Spock _moaned_.

Desperate to hear that sound again, I repeated the motion and—

_Dear merciful Milky Way, he’s moaning for me!_

The next press of my thumbs brought a quiet sigh from his mouth, and all of it together combined to create the most exquisite symphony I’d ever heard in my life. For the next few minutes, he made small adjustments to his position in the chair, variously humming, sighing, and rolling his shoulders up into my touch. He reminded me of a cat standing on its back legs to meet a hand extended to pat its head.

Actually, it was funny that a metaphor involving a cat had popped into my mind. I had not only been more of a dog and horse person most of my life, but when I blocked out the rapid pounding of the blood in my veins, I could have sworn I heard a faint whirring coming from my science officer’s general direction. As stealthily as I could, I tilted my head so my ear stuck out and leaned in to Spock’s hair, and sure enough, the back of his throat seemed to be the source of the gentle sound.

_Are you purring?! _I thought in a swooning love-stricken haze before I could stop myself. I knew in that moment that I would never look at felines the same way again.

I bit my tongue and suppressed the urge to clutch my own heart at the revelation. At the same moment, though, the noise ceased and Spock cleared his throat as he sat up a little straighter.

His shifting brought his hair all that much nearer to me, and while I didn’t want to be caught getting quite that up-close in his personal space, his bowl cut smelled so divine I almost shoved my nose against his scalp to drown myself in it. His aroma was like an intoxicating mixture of pumpkin pie, lavender, and… cedar. No, amber. Bergamot. An indescribable sweet, musky, purely Spock scent, I decided.

From such an intimate distance (or lack thereof), I could also finally see that his hair was, in fact, not quite black, but an extremely rich, deep dark brown. That explained the tiny stripe I sometimes thought I noticed in his bangs; it wasn’t a problem with my vision or a tiny part over his right eye with the skin of his forehead showing through, it was actually a chestnut-colored highlight. If only I was massaging his chest, or had thought to have him lie down with his left cheek on a pillow so I could definitively confirm my new theory.

It was all well and good, to be sure. But his uniform and the tee-shirt I knew he had on underneath it were so bulky. I knew that my efforts at helping Spock to relax would be exponentially more beneficial to his overworked body if I could just…

No. It was too far. I couldn’t possibly touch the skin of another senior officer—a subordinate, if we were going to get technical—in this sensual a manner. What if he took it the wrong way and reported me to the admiralty for harassment? Even more horrifying were the knowledge that the wrong way was the way my heart truly _meant_ it, and the thought of what might happen if he correctly identified the desire I harbored for him underneath all my affectations of confidence and nonchalance. How could I risk my commission, his friendship, his existence in my life like that?

Suddenly the whole thing seemed like a terrible, terrible mistake, my having invited myself to his quarters. I had known all along that I would never be able to get romantically involved with anyone aboard my ship. And from the moment we met, I’d known that our five years in deep space were going to feel like a lifetime for the constant challenge of trying to convince myself that my resplendent commander wasn’t everything I had ever wanted and then some. My fate was sealed, I had accepted it months before this reprehensible massage scheme ever came into my besotted brain: Mr. Spock was for looking, not touching.

_Although_ , I thought, still rubbing the oddly-shaped knot in his back, _you’ve already broken that rule. What’s a simple layer or two of fabric?_

It was a dangerous line of thinking. I _knew_ what a simple layer of fabric meant for my Vulcan friend. He had explained to me within our first few days as coworkers that there was a major difference between physical touch through clothing and direct skin-to-skin contact for his people. It had something to do with telepathic receptors in the epidermis, the highest concentrations of which were localized in the fingertips, face, neck, and genitals, but he’d made it clear that even body parts as innocuous to Humans as elbows or knees were, to a Vulcan, more than sensitive enough for even the slightest bumping together to facilitate unintentional thought-sharing and a bleeding through of emotions.

As much as I wanted it for myself, I couldn’t bear to put the man I loved in that kind of position. It would be awkward for both of us, for one thing, given our status as CO and second in command. And for him it would be considered dubious, if not downright scandalous, behavior with respect to propriety and cultural decency. Besides the fact that if he didn’t return my affections, as I assumed he didn’t, he would then be in the predicament of essentially rejecting me. Spock was far too considerate and virtuous to derive anything but guilt out of breaking another person’s heart.

_No_ , I told myself. _Asking anything more of him would be unethical. This is all you get. Be grateful! It’s far more than you ever thought you’d have in the first place._

It just felt so _good_ to have my hands on him. He was far stronger than me, but here he was letting me care for him, letting me see this unguarded, openly contented side of him I never actually thought I’d get to witness. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to tenderly massage him like this every evening, both of us sitting stark naked on a bed that we shared and getting to intersperse the movements of my hands with loving caresses from my lips and tongue.

The black hole in the center of my chest—the one buried deep in my soul and into which I’d forced myself to banish any hope of ever having anything more than a formal or friendly relationship with Spock—flexed and stretched out its ruthless gravity well, sucking up all these new sensations and enticements, these foolish notions I was entertaining of the commander possibly sending me inviting signals. The constant solar flares of passion and need which I perpetually tried to ignore blazed as bright and hot as a supernova as they flowed over that event horizon into my inescapably lonely core.

I had no idea how much time had passed while I’d been flailing around in my conflicting and overwhelming thoughts, but it couldn’t have been more than five or six minutes because neither of our comms had gone off since leaving the bridge. Generally speaking, it was a minor miracle for the captain or first officer to go more than half an hour without some form of interruption.

Spock let out another delicious moan when I curled my fingers over the tops of his shoulders and dug my thumbs into the tissue just above the boundaries of his scapular spines. My stomach jumping all over the place, I pinched my left thumb and index finger around the seam that ran in a mostly straight line from Spock’s collar all the way down to the precipice of his shoulder. I shifted the fabric until the closure was out of the way, hoping that if I fussed with it enough, he might decide on his own that the uniform was interfering with the whole massage experience and therefore also with his ability to relinquish all of the tension which was cramping and afflicting his torso.

Indeed, at my only slightly dramatized fidgeting with his shirt, Spock repositioned his shoulder to better accommodate my work.

For another few minutes, we carried on, my thumbs kneading his trapezius muscles as they skated laterally along their way to his neck, the rest of my fingers hooking loosely over his clavicle. If, all the while, I was discretely making sure that the bulky seam kept falling into the path of my hand and bunching up under my palm and being a general nuisance, well, maybe I was flirting with temptation a tad more than usual. I told myself I deserved a _little_ something after six months of suppressing every naughty urge and thought I had about the scientist… when I was in his physical presence, anyway. (What happened in the captain’s bed in the small hours of ship’s night was only for him and the bulkheads to know.)

Although I’d spent some ten minutes hoping Spock would eventually want the impediment of his uniform out of the way, I was still surprised when his right hand suddenly appeared on the left side of his neck. My rhythms against his shoulders slowed down while my eyes glued themselves to the progress of his delicate fingers.

He deftly unfastened the magnetic clasp at the top of his collar, then the rest of the closure parted in the wake of the smooth drag of his hand toward my own, which had ceased moving altogether and was trembling on the outer curve of his shoulder. Mr. Spock was opening his uniform for me. Perhaps that was a stretch since it was only his shirt, but he was _stripping_ for me.

Carefully avoiding contact with my hand, he withdrew and a moment later was peeling his entire blue tunic off of his torso. I stared transfixed, and pulled my hands back only just in time before their dead weight would have halted his progress and created an entirely new awkwardness.

This wasn’t just one man giving his consent to another to unfasten a small benign portion of his uniform and massage him. This was a Vulcan, a touch telepath, not merely giving me consent to see and touch him through the open slit of his shirt, but without it being on him at all. Of course, he was still wearing his black undershirt, but the removal of the blue one was about to make things far easier for me and, hopefully, far more relaxing for him.

I myself was anything but relaxed, ironically. The definition and sharpness of his bones were so much easier to see now, and his pale skin made for such a stark and lovely contrast against the pitch of his tee. I’d only had rare glimpses of this much of the beautiful, slender body Spock hid beneath his tunic, and I’d certainly never been granted the privilege of manually exploring it before. The nearness of him, the scent of his shampoo or aftershave or whatever it was, the warmth of his quarters now that my own body had worked up a nervous sweat… all of it combined with the implication behind this gesture—his removal of the most substantial barrier between my hands and his skin—to send my stomach toppling over itself again and again, as if it was caught in a spiraling freefall.

With a surprisingly carefree flick of his wrist, Spock tossed his shirt onto his desk and it lay there with one sleeve dangling over the side. His nonchalant untidiness gave me pause, since I’d always assumed he would be meticulous and militant about keeping his quarters clean. It must have been his obsession with logic that led me to stereotype him so much, thinking he would have a particular method of folding every article of clothing and entire rituals for things like washing his hands and brushing his teeth.

_Where is the logic_ , he suddenly seemed to be saying in my head, _in folding a garment which has been worn all day and is bound for the laundry?_

Those interjections by my imaginary first-officer-slash-life-partner were getting eerie. Coming to, I realized my fingers were dithering at Spock’s shoulders with more dreamy absentmindedness than therapeutic intent. The Vulcan had sat back in his chair so I could reach him, and he had casually stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. In that moment, I loved every centimeter of him, from his mildly scuffed boots reflecting random flecks of the low lighting to those mouthwatering hands resting on his impossibly long thighs.

I resumed his massage, being careful to keep my attentions from trespassing onto the actual skin of his neck. He seemed to become more vocal about the areas right there around the collar of his tee-shirt, that border I’d resolved not to cross unless I was instructed to. It was just my luck that the efforts I was putting in along the outsides of his shoulders and a few centimeters lower on his back were apparently bringing him little relief, whereas the closer I got to the neck I’d forbidden myself from touching, the more he responded with sighs, short, quiet moans, and even little bursts of that purring sound he’d made before.

From where I was standing behind him, I had a perfect view of the little epicenter at the back of his head outward from which all his hair naturally radiated. My own hair being quite different, I found it… well, _fascinating_ that each one of those perfect strands seemed to know precisely where it was supposed to be. It was so tempting to lean in and press my lips to that tiny bit of skin that peeked out where his follicles bent away from one another, flattened sort of as if they were trees blown down by the rippling shockwaves of a meteorite.

On more careful inspection, I realized his pinpoint of a part actually looked quite a bit like the eye of a hurricane, or better yet, the disc at the center of a flower, his hair spiraling out like the petals of a plumeria blossom. When I’d unintentionally come near enough to Spock’s head that the skin at his neck and the color of my own hands got lost in the black tee-shirt background behind his almost black locks, it dawned on me: the crown of his head was the nucleus of a spiral galaxy, and the shining strands which eventually led to his forehead, ears, and neck were the arms.

It made perfect sense, Spock having this whole microcosmic universe built right into him, coded in his DNA. And I was an itty bitty globular cluster caught in the gravity well of his galactic halo, eternally floating in his orbit, just grateful to be near such a luminous celestial masterpiece.

His black shirt was wonderfully smooth to my fingers, though I would have preferred touching him directly. I had dreamed of being this close to him so many times, and yet every time I imagined anything like this, the both of us had far fewer articles of clothing on. I tried to appreciate what Spock was allowing me in the moment, but the knowledge that this was probably all the cozier I was ever going to get with him was bittersweet.

My hands had massaged from the middle of his back out to his arms along his scapulae, then worked their way back to his spinal column along the tops of his shoulders two or three times before I determined that the whole experience was likely about to end, given the lack of remaining area I assumed I was permitted to rub and knead. We couldn’t have been in his quarters longer than ten or fifteen minutes, but they had been so marvelous that even if I had to leave in a matter of seconds, I knew those ten or fifteen minutes would remain seared in my memory forever as some of the most glorious moments of my life. I decided I would just keep going back and forth over the same muscles until he asked me to stop, since I would never stop at all if it was left up to me, and since this really was supposed to be all about his comfort and relaxation.

Just then, as if he’d heard my train of thought, Spock turned his head ninety degrees and appeared to be evaluating me. For a few beats, he watched me in his peripheral vision, keeping his gaze at the level of my ribcage, his indigo eyelids and beautifully long lashes still half closed. When I hesitated under his scrutiny, he lifted his eyebrow in that cute way he had, then faced forward again without a word.

To my equal amazement and euphoria, my first officer tilted his head so his right ear almost touched his right shoulder, a move that emphasized his neck ever-so-invitingly. He held that position and simply waited, looking in my general direction again. The veins in his taut neck just barely stood out, like a delicate embossment, and the urge to trace them with not only my fingers but my tongue as well was just about overpowering.

Although I was sorely tempted, I wasn’t _about_ to assume anything implicit from his actions, not even one as blatant as that. It _seemed_ that he was encouraging the much more personal contact of skin on skin, but between my vow never to make a “first move” on Spock and my moral aversion to any kind of intimate physicality that wasn’t mutually, verbally, and lucidly consented to, I was stuck. My hands hovered on the soft cotton of his undershirt, shaking atop his shoulders despite my best efforts to keep myself calm.

No words would come. All I had to do was ask him, just to eliminate any shadow of a doubt. But my mouth went dry as a hot Vulcan wind and my insides felt more scrambled than during the process of disintegrating in the transporter. It was so simple, so why couldn’t I get even a single word out?

_Should I massage your neck?_ That was all it would take. Or, _Would it be alright if I work on your neck now?_ No big deal. Yet my tongue remained tied. _Looks like your neck is carrying a lot of strain. May I touch you there? I’ll be gentle, I’ve heard that skin-on-skin contact is sort of taboo in Vulcan culture._

It didn’t even need to be that much. A straightforward _May I?_ would no doubt suffice.

_May I caress your magnificent physique with my mouth, and then let you lead me to your bed while we strip each other all the way down to our—_

His hands were on mine.


	4. Chapter 4

Out of absolutely nowhere, Spock’s hands— _Spock’s hands_ —were reaching over their corresponding shoulders and covering _my_ hands.

They were exhilaratingly heavy. Cool. Soothing, like they were made to blanket themselves on mine. They gripped and lifted my hands with authority—impatience, even—and yet his fingers, wrapped around my own, were careful all the same. It felt almost as if he feared he might hurt me.

 _Touch me already, Jim!_ his voice said in my head. _Stop tormenting me!_

Spock maneuvered my hands to his neck and pressed them right onto his skin.

For a split second, I received the most powerful head rush I’d ever felt in my life. The suddenness and the intensity of it would have buckled my knees had the sensation lasted any longer than a static shock. My gut quivered in a manner not unlike the feeling I’d always gotten in the training centrifuge at the Academy. A massive tremor wracked my entire body from head to curling toes. Goosebumps spontaneously broke out all over my arms like bubbles surfacing in boiling water; although I couldn’t see them on account of my long sleeves, I could feel them as the little hairs sprouting from each one became overly stimulated by the friction of my uniform’s material against them.

A dizzying image burst through me then, coming and going so fast I barely registered what I’d seen at all. But I felt a violent fit of tingles at the base of my spine and in my genitals before seeing pale, naked shoulders under a dark head of hair being kissed and caressed by a man of about my complexion. Their bodies were pressed close together from the waist down, the peachy-skinned man huddled snugly enough to the other’s back that he could easily have been…

Yes, from the odd position of the kissee’s legs, the kisser was almost certainly fully erect and buried inside him, unifying their two bodies and souls. It occurred to me that I had decided long ago that if I was ever lucky enough to make love to Spock, my top priorities would be to go as slowly as possible and to take as many breaks as I could from chasing our orgasms to shower him all over in desperate kisses, whisper-light touches, declarations of his perfection and my complete and utter surrender to him for all eternity. Perhaps the man in the sudden illusion I’d experienced was doing something similar with his lover, fearing this might be his only chance and hopelessly trying to memorize every millimeter of his lean partner.

 _I have dreamed of this_ , my phantom first officer said in my skull, _of having you touch me, Captain, every night since we met._

I forced myself to swallow so my airways would unclench. My entire body shivered as I wished—with every cell, molecule, and atom of my existence—that the voice I kept hearing was actually Spock’s, instead of just my out-of-control hormones projecting my deepest desires. I took a long breath and did my best to clear my thoughts and try to enjoy the wonderful privilege I was actually being allowed in reality.

Bizarre spontaneous vision notwithstanding, it was such a thrill, getting nonverbal but nevertheless loud and clear permission from my first officer to do this, to touch him in such a private, special way for, presumably, an extended period of time. I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking, but the only thing to do was move forward. There was no way I was going to let my nervousness prevent me from taking this opportunity the commander was giving me.

I channeled everything I’d learned about confidence and risk-taking in command school, took a deep, shaky breath, and resumed the massage I myself had so foolishly chosen to initiate in the first place. Back on the bridge and in the turbolift, I hadn’t had the slightest intention of things going this far. A Vulcan, especially a Vulcan who’d worked his way to senior officer status in Starfleet, would _never_ let a Human just come over to his place and start rubbing and caressing him for no apparent reason. It had been unlikely that Spock would permit anyone but a medical professional to treat him in any way for muscle tension, even considering our nearness and the obvious fact of his abnormal amount of pain.

This moment was _everything_ to me. Of all the inappropriate, amorous, romantic, and sexy fantasies I’d had involving the scientist, I had never dreamed that in a million lifetimes he would ever actually literally present me with a chance in real life to taste even the smallest crumb of the intimacy I longed for with my whole being. Yet there I was, sampling the sweetest, most luxurious ambrosia the universe could ever know.

The atmosphere in Spock’s quarters was so cozy. It had just the right amount of warmth (a degree or two above the temperature of the corridors), and that combined with my hyperactive imagination (and sweat glands) lent an air of pleasant humidity to everything. A million reckless words raced through my head, all of them eager to leap from my tongue and into those exquisite pointed ears so close now to my hands and mouth. But somehow, I managed to prevent myself from blurting any of them out. The soft sound of his tee-shirt fabric rustling as he shifted in his chair was the only thing that needed to be heard in that moment. My heartbeat seemed obnoxiously loud in my chest, my breaths embarrassingly ragged as I tried to keep them from falling on my science officer’s neck.

Apart from the knots in Spock’s neck unfurling with upsetting ease under my fingers, pure, beautiful silence surrounded us.

_Us._

It was just me and the man I loved with every cell in my body. The lack of any noise but the ambient hum of our ship was too perfect a thing to spoil with the passionate words I’d held in my heart for what felt like a lifetime. It was too perfect a thing to ruin with the gushing praise I always fought to hold inside so as not to embarrass or overwhelm him.

It was too perfect to ruin even with an earnest, quiet declaration of my love for him. I knew all too well just how drastically the silence would change if I confessed my feelings to him, now or at any time in any place. It would become an uncomfortable, cold, stark, and lonely smog. And it wouldn’t merely engulf me there in that room, it would permeate and corrode my very soul until the day I died.

No, as always, my confession was best kept to myself, bottled up in my heart where it couldn’t hurt anyone but me. The quiet that settled around us as my trembling fingertips fought to transmit my affection and desire into the heavenly skin of Spock’s naked, porcelain-smooth neck was…

_Sacred._

It was the perfect word, and it echoed in my skull in Spock’s orgasmic voice. But I had a suspicious feeling that it had _not_ come from my own mind. At the déjà vu-like sensation, I second guessed all the things I’d heard in my head that evening which I’d taken as being spoken by the Spock from my dreams and fantasies. Was it possible for a psi-null Human like myself to receive the thoughts of a touch telepath in a situation like this?

 _Surely not_ , I thought, trying to assuage the panic that was threatening to leak into my bloodstream. And even if such a thing was possible, Spock would never be so careless or cavalier as to let me eavesdrop on whatever was going on in his mind. Assuming he had that kind of control, of course… but why wouldn’t he? He’d grown up and been trained in the Vulcan ways, after all. Although, what if his Human half had proven to be even partially inhibiting to the psychic disciplines? Maybe without his necessarily even being aware that it had?

Refocusing my attention to avoid a headache, I slowly worked my way up his neck and found another thick knot just beneath his hairline. It only took me a few kneaded circles of moderate pressure on the rough patch to elicit another moan just like the first one I’d heard some fifteen minutes earlier. While I was certainly grateful that, now massaging his skin directly instead of through multiple layers of fabric, I didn’t have to push my thumbs and fingers against him with even half as much effort as before, it just so happened that, without any warning, I had an entirely new problem to try to solve.

Best I could figure, the erotic scent of my first officer must have intensified dramatically when he’d removed his xenylon shirt, and maybe the added emotional ramifications of his touch and his desire (or at least willingness) to have me rub his skin had overwhelmed my body past its ability to resist him. Whatever the reason, without my meaning for it to happen, I found myself rapidly developing an erection out of the clear blue. The inappropriateness of it alone was enough to completely mortify me. If Spock was to turn around at any point, he would have to be stricken blind not to notice the bulge of my thickening penis along my inner left thigh, which I knew was unmistakable even to a non-Human.

Actually, it was worse than that. I didn’t get any alien-species-related benefit of the doubt with Spock, given his encyclopedic scientific knowledge, not to mention his Human mother who may or may not have discussed such delicate things with him at some point in his maturation. She was a schoolteacher, after all, from what I recalled of the few times he had spoken of her to me.

Biologically, it stood to reason that Spock’s own reproductive anatomy would be fully Vulcan, as his sex traits were probably completely determined by his father’s contribution to his genetic makeup. Based purely on conjecture and a few educated guesses, it was a distinct likelihood that males of his father’s species were equipped with organs similar, at least on a fundamental level, to those of Human males. After all, if my commander’s parents had conceived him by completely natural means without the assistance of medical technology or surrogacy, surely that implied that Vulcan men had some sort of appendage like a penis with which to successfully penetrate and inseminate a Human female.

To my dismay, my musings only served to make my situation worse. As accidental erections went, this one was a doozy. It had only been a minute or so and already I could feel my racing blood throbbing down there as uncomfortably as if I was deliberately edging whilst pleasuring myself. I needed some kind of distraction, but literally all I could think about was Spock. _Spock_ , sitting there letting me give him the kind of corporeal attention I’d only ever imagined giving to a spouse.

Hell, the one and only time Carol actually talked me into giving her a quick neck rub, I’d been so reluctant and nervous that my half-hearted poking and prodding ended up making her even more stressed and irritated than she’d already been. I chalked it up to inexperience—which was true enough, given how young I was and how few romantic pursuits I’d had before we met—but the full truth was that our wedding was only a few weeks away and she’d been trying every trick in the book to get me into bed no matter how many times I told her I wasn’t ready yet.

I grinned a little in spite of myself, still trying to think away my erection while attempting to keep my hands or my breathing from betraying my arousal to Spock. Oh, how the public and even my own crew would laugh in utter disbelief at the notion of _me_ being so shy and conservative as to actively avoid sex with any woman, any _person_ regardless of gender, let alone with someone I’d been engaged to. If I dwelled on the matter too long, all it served to do was make me so angry that I was liable to hurl a datapadd against a bulkhead or vaporize one of the gym’s punching bags with my phaser. (Not that I had ever actually done either of those things, or then made up ridiculous lies to explain the circumstances without really admitting to what I’d done.) But the philandering reputation the admiralty had worked so hard to cultivate around me—purely for the sake of getting Starfleet mentioned in a few cheap headlines once in a while—really got under my skin.

I’d gone over and over the issue about a million times with my therapist, and although everything ze explained to me made sense during our sessions, I was seldom able to continue believing any of it once our time was up. And Bones occasionally spent some of our recreational meetups echoing zir, trying to remind me that it didn’t matter what the paparazzi thought or what our superiors thought—that what mattered was the truth and the fact that he himself, my therapist, and the few friends I’d made on board knew the real me. Nevertheless, being used as a celebrity poster child for the Fleet _and_ having my moral character be so grossly and duplicitously misrepresented was more than I could tolerate. If I dwelled on it.

 _I know you’re a feminist, Jim_ , Bones had said to me more times than I could count. _I know you respect all individuals of all genders and species and dimensions, you hate the thought of encroaching on anyone’s bodily or intellectual autonomy, and you never want to share your bed with anyone you don’t have a mutual loving commitment with. I get it. And I know that Spock and Scotty have at least figured out that your public persona and your private self are two very different people. So who really cares what anybody else thinks?_

I appreciated his sentiments, but still… _I_ cared. I didn’t want to live under some disgusting, Neanderthal image of being an intergalactic playboy who was less interested in discovery or exploration than indiscriminately and irresponsibly sowing my wild oats as far and wide as possible. Sometimes it was hard to believe so many Humans still glorified those ancient behaviors of toxic masculinity. It was the twenty-third century, for Hale-Bopp’s sake, and all the people printing and reading those abhorrent tabloids with headlines like “Keeping Count of Kirk’s Kids!” were just making it all the more difficult for the good and decent men in the world to—

Spock cleared his throat then, alerting me to the unintentional ruthlessness of my hands’ work, my brain apparently having channeled my mounting frustration into his massage. Easing off considerably, I wasn’t sure if I had indeed hurt him a little or if it had just been a coincidence, but I felt myself blushing and wanting to apologize to him.

I stopped myself just before the words left my lips. It was obviously best if he remained unaware of the _complication_ between my thighs with which I was still doing battle, and speaking might cause him to turn around to face me, meaning certain disaster.

Only at that point did it occur to me that if I stayed in Spock’s quarters, continuing to ease his tension for as long as a typical Human neck- and shoulder-rub lasted, if I kept touching him and unsuccessfully attempting to wait out my stubborn libido, I might actually… only accidentally, of course, but… I might just…

_No, there’s no way!_

My face heated up irrepressibly. I knew there was no use trying to convince myself it couldn’t happen. My mind, heart, and body wanted what— _whom_ —they wanted, and they were all in blissfully agonizing agreement about him. It was so wrong, so inappropriate. And yet all those nights I’d spent fantasizing about him since I’d become the _Enterprise_ ’s captain, all those opportunities I got each day to stare my fill at him on the bridge without detection, and— _sweet geosynchronous orbits_ —all the exquisite feelings I got when I shifted my weight, causing my briefs to give the slightest amount of friction to my penis just _felt so good!_

The textures of Spock’s veins and muscles tortured my fingers as I pressed into them. He was soft but strong, cooler to the touch than a Human but still wonderfully warm. Try as I might, I was completely unable to think of anything but this very situation, his very presence seeming to float into my lungs like the refreshing breezes that carried the scent of recent rains and delicate flowers across the prairies in spring. The intoxicating proximity I finally had to the man I wanted so badly was working on me without mercy. Another few minutes went by and my body was more tightly coiled and stimulated than I remembered it being in years.

Although it seemed impossible that simply by continuing to massage Spock I might end up actually having an orgasm, well… I would have thought the same thing about spontaneously becoming almost intolerably hard as quickly as I had. My penis was as full and sore as if just one or two more hearty strokes along the shaft would send it overflowing; my testicles were equally tight and just about ready to explode. Relative to my restless fantasies, I was about at the point when my dream-Spock, his clever, wet fingers tickling the head of my erection, would smile—not grin, but really smile—down at me, take my lower lip into his mouth, and then whisper my name to me until, only a few seconds later, his voice coaxed me to an extraordinary, bursting climax that had me shrieking from the overload of euphoria and clinging to him so violently that the squeezing together of our joined bodies milked every last excruciating drop out of me.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I would go about hiding or explaining a giant wet spot at the front of my pants between my legs should I somehow manage to orgasm before I got out of Spock’s quarters. It was embarrassing enough already even without him knowing about my predicament. How could I ever show my face to him again if I started seizing and panting and, merciful heavens, _ejaculating_ right behind him? While _touching_ him?

Of course, if that did end up happening, I wouldn’t just be touching him anymore, I would be clutching onto him for dear life. If there was any one thing I’d learned from my experience with Carol and the countless experiences on my own in dark bedrooms and cramped quarters, it was that whenever I was at the height of physical pleasure—and for many long minutes after—I had an acute need for closeness, for something or someone to wrap my arms around to help weather the intensity of release.

I was fully aware that, chemically speaking, it was a little abnormal for a Human male to get so cuddly mid- and post-orgasm, but stars help me, I wanted nothing more in those moments than to feel the safety and comfort of a lover’s embrace… something I’d never been fortunate enough to have. My most frequent victims in my times of need were a pillow or bunched-up bedsheets, which for the past six months had been stand-ins for one very particular person. But if, as in the case at hand, there was another warm body within reach, a slightly-cooler-than-me body, technically, perhaps one with dark, downy hair and beautiful upswept ear tips and strong pale arms to hold me, a body I had imagined making love with and burrowing into literally every night since I’d been aboard the _Enterprise_ …

If I indeed turned out to be that incapable of controlling myself and my body, if this intimacy-which-was-not-intimacy proved me to be powerless against its magnitude, there would be no amount of excuses or explanations or lies to cover up the truth of my love for Spock. Everything would be there, out in the open for him to see and evaluate however he might.

Everything would be over. I would probably lose him both as a friend and as an officer within a matter of hours. What kind of Vulcan, what kind of _person_ would want to serve as second in command to a captain who had invited himself to their quarters one evening so he could pleasure himself at their expense? Lord, he would think I was such a pervert.

I felt like I was going to be sick.

As it happened, that was for the best: the mild nausea acted to help my erection flag a little. So far, that was the only thing working against the steady intensifying of my sexual excitement. I bit my lower lip and shut my eyes. The pain coupled with the unbearable thought of not getting to see Spock every day was almost enough to counteract the eroticism my brain had attached to this physical ritual. I knew I had to maintain as much control as I possibly could; it was downright unconscionable that I was thinking of this massage—something that should have been friendly and casual but nothing more—as some inadvertent means of seducing my executive officer, while said officer sat under my care, trusting the tender muscles of his privately-guarded body to me, totally unaware of the lewd direction my own body and thoughts had taken.

 _Your arousal is not your fault_ , my headspace Spock purred to me.

What? My mind was even more scrambled up than I’d thought.

 _When you asked to see me alone_ , the voice in my head continued, _your intentions were entirely honorable. It has only been since I all but insisted you put your hands on me that you have been stimulated to hardness and tempted to fantasize about us together until achieving release._

Now that he mentioned it… well, now that my brain recalled the facts, I realized it was true. When we left the bridge, spoke in the turbolift, and even when Spock admitted me into his quarters, I was excited, to be sure, but I’d also been so afraid of doing something stupid to jeopardize my relationship with him that my tense body had been just about as far from sexually aroused as ever.

I worked on another knot at the base of his neck. It was overwhelming, trying to reign in my physiological enthusiasm while seeing one of the visions I’d dreamt of so many times, my fingers brushing against and moving beneath the fabric of his collar. But this was all the further I could allow myself to go, to say nothing of the limitations Spock himself obviously had and would make known if I happened to trespass beyond their boundaries. He was a sentient being, after all, with his own body, his own beliefs and comfort levels, his own cultural, personal, and moral principles which surely included standards where physical intimacy was concerned.

Over the course of half an hour or so, if my sense of time was even slightly accurate, I did my best to gently untie the knots all over the commander’s shoulders and neck, all while stubbornly pretending I wasn’t aching below the belt. I moved my hands freely from his upper back to the curve of his arms, from his collarbone to the nodes nestled into the soft skin beneath his jaw. It was probably overly cavalier of me, but I went as far as rubbing his Adam’s apple and the spots so close behind his ears that my fingers almost succumbed to the lure of weaving their way into his hair.

When his occasional moans evened out into a steady hum—that extraordinary purring sound again—his muscles felt relatively slack throughout the area I’d covered. Yet the thought of stopping what I was doing and acknowledging that my presence was no longer necessary weighed on me with all the magnitude of the middle-of-the-night depressive episodes I’d started having since falling in love with him and accepting the fact that I could never have him.

I wondered if he felt a fraction as contented as I did (despite the persistent discomfort between my legs) at sharing physical touch, sharing our off-duty time in an easy silence. Our loosely connected auras, if I could ever be allowed such poetic license, glittered under the sky full of twinkling stars that embodied our friendship in my mind. Seldom had my spirit ever been so at peace. I was caressing Spock, massaging him in more than just a utilitarian way, and he was _responding_ to me! He was gradually turning to jelly beneath my hands, slumping a little in his chair, and purring loudly enough that the feline sound was unmistakable even to my Human ears.

Transitioning from deep tissue kneading to lightly floating my hands over his skin, I dared to lean forward in an attempt to get a look at his face. I was stunned to find his eyes shut as if he was in some kind of trance; I nearly lost my balance altogether when I noticed his luscious lips were curving upward at the corner of his mouth, and in a far less subtle manner than his usual coy grins. He looked comfortable, even (dare I say it?) soothed by my attentions. The serenity on his face enchanted me, delighted me… tormented me. I knew I would despise myself later for all of this, but we were both so relaxed and I had lost all concept of time, a luxury I seldom experienced as the captain of a ship with a crew complement of four hundred and thirty.


	5. Chapter 5

Had it been forty-five minutes? Maybe sixty? I had no idea. Three hours might have gone by already, and yet no matter how many times I ghosted my fingertips up and down his long, striking neck, it felt like only a few precious seconds had elapsed since I’d begun. The light touch I was using was one I’d mentally reserved for use only with a lover, the total lack of pressure somehow signifying both the reverence and the anguish my wasted heart guarded behind its armor. I tried to tell him through that touch just how deeply I needed him, how devotedly I would care for him if he would let me.

Spock moaned again when my hands climbed his neck, my palms covering the sides and my fingers wrapping around to the front. Mesmerized by his reaction, I repeated the motion and he raised his head, thrusting his chin up in the air and almost imperceptibly whimpering. Despite my limited interactions with cats, I recognized this as yet another mostly-feline tendency: he looked as if he wanted me to scratch under his jaw and maybe on his cheeks.

The thought may have been a little weird, but it was tempting all the same.

 _God_ , I thought, _it should be illegal to be this sweet and cute and irresistible!_ I only just clamped down on my desires in time to avoid detection. A massive wave of affection had flooded my senses and I felt an inexplicable urge to wrap my arms as tightly as possible around Spock’s shoulders, nuzzle my face into his neck, and just start kissing him all over. My penis, of course, unhelpfully throbbed a few times at that idea.

I was further astounded when, after ten or twelve repetitions of the soft up-and-down motions along the velvety column of his neck, my half-Vulcan first officer actually tilted his head back so far that his hair nudged up against my stomach. To prevent further strain to his muscles, I stepped the tiniest bit closer, accommodating the gorgeous head that was then fully resting back on my belly. My heart threatened to implode in my chest at the overwhelming grip Spock had on me, the wonderfully disarming power he had over me, the infinitely pleasurable and yet agonizing spell by which I’d become utterly hypnotized.

The stress and tension in his upper body had long since been dealt with. But the air in his quarters was so calm and warm, and Spock kept on making that mellifluous purring sound, its vibrations traveling from his chest through my fingers straight into my heart… and, unfortunately, my genitals. It was such exquisite torment getting to feel his cool, smooth skin with my bare fingertips, and I was addicted beyond rehabilitation to the titillating gusts of love and lust that seemed to be leaping back and forth across our physical connection, flowing over and throughout my whole body. Determined to make the surreal fantasy last as long as I could, I slowed my strokes even further and just continued to caress all the areas I had already tended to in that feather-light pressure, going over them again and again. I was content to do so indefinitely, although I was sure Spock would no doubt object.

About the only place within my reach that I hadn’t yet explored was his hair. Not only did I vehemently desire having permission to bury my hands in his locks, I also recalled from the bridge that he’d cradled his forehead a few times as if in pain. In six months’ time, I’d seen more than enough to know that it took a pretty intense pain to make Spock show outward signs of it. But even taking into account how many times the commander had surprised me in the preceding hour, there was just no way to suggest or attempt a scalp massage without crossing the line.

My hands hesitated at that line, that beautiful concave meniscus-shaped curve where his skin gave way to progressively thicker and longer strands of glossy hair as the eye traveled upward. I wanted desperately for our encounter never to end, whether or not it meant alleviating the headache he likely still harbored. With a sigh that I hoped was inaudible, I slipped my fingers back down to take another pass over his neck and upper back.

 _Try and preserve at least a single milligram of your dignity, you fool_ , I berated myself. _His hair is not yours to play with whenever you want._

 _It could be_ , my Spock delusion parried in my head. _Just ask me, Jim, and you could play with my hair—with all of me—whenever you wanted._

 _Are you out of your mind?_ I thought back bitterly to my subconscious. _We’re trying to make my erection go away, sweetheart, not make it throb even harder!_

The next time my hands coasted up, they came even nearer to that border, getting within a centimeter or less of grazing the shortest hairs there. I commanded them to glide down again. I was almost surprised that they actually obeyed, unlike my aggravating phallus.

 _Ask me, Captain_ , mind-Spock said again, _simply ask and I will give you anything you want. Ask me if I’ll allow you to massage my scalp, ask me for permission to work your exquisite fingers into my hair. I will not disappoint you, I would fully consent to that treatment even without a migraine or any explicit purpose but to bring us mutual pleasure._

My imagination was getting a little too persuasive. And it was imitating Spock’s diction, inflection, and orgasmic timbre far too well.

 _We both desire this_ , his voice went on. _What, as Dr. McCoy might say, do you have to lose?_

Unbidden, my brain conjured up a spontaneous and disarmingly lifelike image of the two of us lounging on Spock’s bunk. Except I was naked. No, we were _both_ naked, luxurious blue sheets messily pooled at the foot of the bed. I was propped against the headboard with a happily purring Vulcan nestled between my legs, relaxing backward into me. My fingers threaded leisurely through his magnificent hair, and my legs were wrapped loosely around his waist. His hands absent-mindedly rubbed up and down my shins, and I heard myself mumble something indistinct which then elicited his musical laugh. When his chuckling sent him shifting in my embrace, the cleft in his backside repositioned and then cuddled closer to my bared penis. The underside of my shaft buzzed from the delightful friction, and he tilted his head back to smirk mischievously at me after I unintentionally rotated my hips in search of more.

A small drop of blood touched my tongue in reality. Great. In order to avoid hauling Spock out of his chair, attaching myself to him like a four-limbed octopus, and clamping around him with all my might and no intention of ever letting go, I had bitten down so hard on my lip that it was bleeding.

Stopping to concentrate for a moment on my silly injury, my whole body shuddered from the intensity of the exceptionally detailed vision I’d just had. I hardly noticed that Spock turned his head and appeared to be assessing me in his peripheral vision, probably nonverbally inquiring why I’d stayed my hands. Since I was still absorbed in that fantasy and in making my lip stop bleeding, I jumped a little and inhaled sharply through my nose when his fingers covered mine once more without any warning.

Spock tilted his head back and, with his thumbs secure on the sensitive insides of my wrists, guided my tingling hands—in what I could only describe as an erotically slow manner—up from the nape of his neck and into the divine hair I had longed to feel for months. He stilled all our movements only once he had worked along from index to pinky deliberately fanning my fingers out over his scalp.

When he _did_ pause, his hand remained on mine and I felt dizzy almost to the point of fainting at the intimacy of what I was doing. Well, what _he_ was doing. What we were _both_ doing. I was effectively cradling his head in my hands, given that he’d tipped it back far enough to give me most of its weight.

Just when I felt I couldn’t bear much more, Spock began to take his hands away. But he didn’t merely lift them off and out of his hair—no. Instead, he slid them down my knuckles and wrists and actually dragged the ends of my sleeves down, exposing several centimeters of both my arms to his graceful touch.

My breath caught in my chest again. I legitimately thought I might die right there in that moment, my desire and temptation so overwhelming that I all but assumed they would kill me.

And then another vivid scene flashed before my eyes, just before Spock’s fingers left my skin. We were both still naked, but lying chest to chest. Spock was pulling a sheet up to cover us. It was a gold sheet—we were in my quarters, I realized.

The vision faded abruptly, Spock letting out a sigh as he legitimately slouched in his chair and relaxed into my hands. But I could still see the picture in my mind. It was as if one of those ancient radios or televisions had been receiving a feed and encountered interference, leaving just a whisper of the ongoing broadcast.

What was wrong with my brain that would cause it to go in and out like that? I wondered at myself even while straining to focus on the ghostlike image of Spock, all lean muscle and charming pale skin, drawing me into an embrace, guiding me into the crook of his arm, tangling his legs with mine, stroking the side of my face as he looked adoringly into my eyes. His plump lips moved, but the only sound I heard was a watery jumble, just the way my own voice had sounded in the last fantasy but with even less volume. After the fact, it seemed he’d been giving the command to lower the lights, because the room dimmed until his face and my hand on his chest were cast in a dark purplish-blue glow.

Afraid of doing anything to interrupt the strange mental picture, I remained frozen where I was, with my fingers splayed on Spock’s head making his hair bulge and stick out at various points. I stared at the silken strands as well as the short fluffy hair I could still see on his bare chest. That ghost image of my hand drew lazy patterns all over ghost-Spock’s firm pectoral, and my _real_ hand got the tiniest prickles of mixed textures that could only come from actually moving one’s fingers along a surface—or a stunning Vulcan body, as it were. It felt mildly similar to the sensation of a limb stirring back to life after falling asleep, yet far, far more pleasant.

A feeling like relief or gratification lapped at the edges of my consciousness, and I almost let out a heavy sigh as that urge to snuggle up with my first officer intensified. As a matter of fact, it felt uncannily like the aftereffects of an orgasm. My erection deflated a percent or two, the phantom fantasy apparently trying to give my body the impression that it had climaxed and should be settling into a sleepy afterglow.

I had to fight it off, even though it only accounted for a small portion of the emotions racing through me and it had all taken place in the span of about five seconds.

 _Ground yourself, Kirk_ , I thought. _Be professional. You’re here to help ease Spock’s headache, not seduce him. And there’s no way in hell he let you into his quarters so he could seduce you._

With a sweeping forward motion, I carded my fingers through Spock’s hair and let them drag along his scalp with gentle pressure. I didn’t stop until my hands had flowed all the way through his bangs, then I lifted them free of his skin and hair to place them at the base of his neck again. But when I lost contact with his body, the little grasp I’d kept on that vision slipped away.

Against my better judgment, I felt bereft to have lost it.

To my ecstatic surprise, it came back when I put my hands on him again, something like an ancient filament light bulb—in a surge at first, but quickly levelling off to its previous strength. For whatever reason, it reassured me to be able to see and feel the little daydream once more, though I did my best to ignore it as much as I could while I tried to start mapping out the most relaxation-inducing areas of Spock’s head to massage.

Now that my hands were active again, I found myself entirely too besotted by the fact that Spock was letting me ruffle his coiffure out of its pristine arrangement. A small part of me was even amused by the circumstances, as the slightest motions of my fingers caused more and more of those incredibly soft hairs to stand up or at least just fall out of place. I wondered what he looked like from the front, because even from the back he was starting to take on an Einsteinian level of disarray.

In the faint daydream, Spock’s free hand came up to cover mine on his chest. He rubbed my first two fingers, creating one single ripple of nervous excitement in the pit of my stomach, and then grabbed my hand and guided it toward his face. Instead of kissing my fingers or having me cup his cheek, he placed our joint touch just behind his ear. As my imaginary hand fondled the back of its shell and then a tender node tucked in the nook where ear met neck, the imaginary Spock nuzzled against my forehead and began to purr. The little lump swelled under my fingers, and his humming strengthened; I wondered if my science officer actually had something like that integrated in his physiology, some ticklish or erogenous area that could cause him to make that adorable sound on command.

It was further ironic that our fantasy selves were doing such a thing, since, just a few seconds before I sensed renewed movement in the dreamscape, I had begun to muse over how amazing it would no doubt feel to trace the distinct and elegant points of his ears with my fingers, and maybe someday with my lips and tongue. I was, in a way, appalled at myself for obsessing over this desire to stroke his helices with so much envy when, not ten minutes before, the commander had unexpectedly, voluntarily, and gratuitously thrilled me with the hedonistic indulgence of getting to sift through his hair. How could I possibly be wishing for _more_ already? It seemed to be a cruel but inevitable fact of our relationship that no matter what Spock gave me, no matter how close he allowed me to get or how much he allowed me to do, I would greedily take everything he offered and immediately, jealously hunger for whatever was left that I hadn’t yet obtained.

Without warning, a minor burst of pain flowed through my head and was gone as quickly as it had come, reminding me of the reason for my personal call on Mr. Spock’s quarters. I went back to narrowing my focus onto the varied but distinct reactions he exhibited from each particular touch, systematically testing the entire surface of his scalp and making note of the areas that brought him the most obvious comfort or pleasure. Interestingly enough, the nearer my touch came to his ears—whether to those hauntingly beautiful points or to that niche which may or may not have held a secret like the sensitive node I’d explored in the dream—the nearer I came to having my fingers “accidentally” stray onto his pinnae, the less self-conscious Spock appeared to become where his audible sighs and muted moans and whimpers were concerned. If I hadn’t known better, I might have easily mistaken those lovely noises (and the way he kept tilting his head into whichever of my hands was most active) for wantonness.

A chill migrated up my arms and through my chest when I remembered that I would have to leave Spock’s quarters before the day was over, and that the end of the day was fast approaching. I knew I should take solace from the fact that my massage had thus far seemed to be successful; Spock’s muscles were no longer tense and his contented sighs indicated that his headache had at least improved if not dissipated entirely. But I had masochistically allowed myself to become so absorbed by my executive officer’s calm presence and those sensual daydreams that facing reality was almost too cruel to bear.

I wanted to stay. There was no use denying it to myself, anyway: I wanted to stay the night in Spock’s cabin. I wanted to be invited to join him in his bed. I wanted to be undressed by him, and to undress him in return. I wanted to feel his naked body next to mine, around mine, inside mine. I wanted him to hold me in his arms and let me see what he looked like while he slept. I wanted to feel him still touching me the very moment I woke up the next morning, and I wanted to be able to snuggle even closer to him before either of us opened our eyes. I wanted to smell him on my skin, in my hair, in my clothes.

The room had gone quiet again, I realized after a short while. Spock’s purring had tapered off, as had his sporadic hums and his squirmy movements of encouragement. His head was heavier in my hands than it had been all evening, and for a moment I thought I must have been hallucinating because I heard a throaty whisper that my Human mind instinctually associated with _snoring_.

Certain that was too farfetched an idea to be true, I shook my head at my frivolousness and decided it must be some kind of Vulcan breathing technique to aid in relaxation. All the same, I changed the pressure and scope of my strokes to a much lighter, less distracting palpation and fluttering of my fingers against the area just under the crown of his head. Maybe if I kept my hands in one place and did what I could to clear my own mind, Spock would be better able to hold onto his tranquil state even after I left. It was no secret to me that he slept far less than he ought to; I’d been with him for a few landing missions during which his expertly-applied foundation was rubbed or washed away, revealing dark circles under his eyes that rivaled the blues and purples of his everyday eye shadow tints.

 _And maybe_ , my brain added, _if he goes to bed soon enough, he’ll dream about you…_

I knew my crush himself would say that kind of “logic” was completely nonsensical. But once the thought was there, it was hard not to get my hopes up despite its inherent ridiculousness.

The commander had stilled even more in the cradle of my hands, and the rhythmic sizzling sounds of his breathing were deeper and louder than before.

My curiosity got the better of me. I very slowly, very carefully shifted my weight on my feet enough to keep my hands level while I leaned sideways and forward to get a glimpse of his face. My heart clenched in my chest when I found his shut eyes twitching beneath their violet-dusted lids as if he was in REM sleep.

 _He snores?_ I thought, incredulous. _My sweet half-Vulcan snores… be still, my beating heart._

Just then, he inhaled again with that soft gasping sound, and a moment later he exhaled as calmly and soundlessly as ever. I stood simply watching and listening to him for a short while, completely enamored with him and his adorable quirks. I found with my more attentive observation that they were really more like little puppy snores than Human. Or, well… more like kitten snores than puppy ones, I supposed.

 _Oh, Spocky_ , I thought, _you’re so cute I’m going to die._

My close-up view coupled with the play of light across his features informed me that Spock’s eye shadow actually included an extremely subtle amount of glitter. The way it reflected the smallest twinkles of light back out into the world, into my own eyes as his shifted with his dreaming, was spellbinding—and all too appropriate, given his radiant, shimmering personality. His kohl eyeliner, too, appeared at this range to have a bit of sparkle itself.

On the one hand, I couldn’t imagine loving him more. And on the other, I wondered why he bothered with cosmetics at all, when surely his was already the most attractive face in the galaxy. The lipstick I understood, since the natural color of his lips was quite different from the rosy Human shade, and he probably didn’t want to startle his colleagues with too many more visible physical differences than his ears and brows. Obviously, Spock enjoyed playing with the other makeup elements he used, but I couldn’t help wondering where his affinity for it had come from. A cute picture of him as a child asking his Earth-born mother about her blushes and eyeliners played in my head, causing me to giggle under my breath.

His lashes flickered with each shift of his eyes, and I wished more than anything that I could lean down and kiss them.

Without stopping to think about what I was doing, I guided Spock’s drooping head as gently as possible to lie propped between his shoulder and the high back of his chair. He had slumped down far enough that, as long as I was quick, the position wouldn’t prove too awkward or strenuous on him. Once I was satisfied that I hadn’t woken him and that he wasn’t going to topple to the floor, I dared to give his hirsute left arm a quick rub up from the elbow to where his short sleeve hit his bicep, then all the way to his wrist, which I squeezed lightly before withdrawing my hands from him altogether.

As I straightened, spun on my heel, and tugged at my uniform in a few spots where it had bunched up and gotten wrinkled, I noticed that my entire being seemed to collapse in on itself, almost like a dying star giving way to the pressure of its own gravity. My spirits fell, my heart sank, every old cliché I could think of that described a despairing mind or a deteriorating mood applied more fittingly than I’d ever felt they might have before. I actually shivered from the odd sensation of cold that took over me. All the pleasant waking dreams I’d been enjoying while massaging my commander had left me suddenly, and I stood beside his desk wanting nothing more in the universe than to turn right back around, climb into Spock’s lap, and wrap myself up in his arms.

 _At least you’ve calmed down a bit, anyway_, I thought to my dissipating erection. Thankfully, it was no longer throbbing and I was no longer on the edge of orgasm. The little bit of walking around I was about to do was sure to help, too.

That mushy part of me flooded with affection when I saw Spock’s discarded tunic where it had landed on his desk. Retrieving it, I watched his serene face as I gathered it up in a clump, took a long whiff of the heavenly scent saturating its fibers, and clutched it to my heart as I exhaled. I was so far gone for Spock it wasn’t even funny anymore. It was as if I’d turned into an unnervingly infatuated Vulcan groupie.

Focusing on my task—instead of the strange lachrymose feeling churning in my tear ducts—I strode into Spock’s dark sleeping quarters and manually turned the lights up to about ten percent so I could see what I was doing and avoid crashing around breaking things, or worse, waking the sleeping prince. I glanced at him through the partition and found he was just fine, evidently dozing peacefully, if not as comfortably as he might have intended. But that was my responsibility, given that I’d caused him to nod off in the first place. I smiled ruefully at myself again for being so hopelessly enamored with my second in command, but turned away, reluctantly tossed his shirt in the laundry chute, and busied myself with my new assignment.


	6. Chapter 6

Getting this close to Spock’s bed had occurred to me many times by that point. But I had seldom if ever dared to dream it might actually happen someday. It wasn’t happening exactly the way I’d imagined—with him wide awake, kissing me senseless, ruffling my hair, sensually divesting both of us of our clothes, carefully easing me onto his bunk, settling himself atop me and between my legs, holding and caressing and opening me as if he thought I might break, and bringing our bodies together with all the love and tenderness in the world—but that was alright. Getting acquainted with his living quarters this way was still far preferable to the only other (and, I figured, more plausible) scenario that had crossed my mind a few times against my will: Spock being incapacitated in a landing party, insisting on being released from Sickbay before he truly recovered, and begrudgingly relying on me to nurse him back to health without McCoy finding out about it.

First thing first, I carefully picked up the embroidered navy blue coverlet from the foot of Spock’s bed. I wasn’t certain whether or not he actually made practical use of it as a blanket, but it was in such pristine condition and had such delicate hand stitching that I erred on the side of caution. It felt like crushed velvet, and smelled like a combination of old paper books and all of those glorious scents in my scientist’s skin and hair. I folded it with the reverence it seemed due—for all I knew, it might have been some kind of sacred, hundred-year-old family heirloom—and placed it on the table beside his communications monitor.

Next, I reached under the pillows to grab the top of the sparkling orange duvet that matched my own, and that of every other senior officer. I pulled it and the blue sheet beneath it down toward the foot of the bed until there was enough room to accommodate a sweetly sleeping Vulcan. When I was satisfied that the bed was turned down adequately and his pillows were positioned in as cozy a manner as possible, I let my fingers slide onto the dark red drapes that covered the headboard and the walls behind and to the left of the bed. It was a heavy fabric somewhat like velvet, and if I hadn’t just had my hands in Spock’s hair it might have been the softest stuff I’d ever touched.

I took a long moment to look around his room at all the personal effects and decorations he had on display. A few relics that I assumed were of some historical or cultural significance lined the walls and his wainscot shelving unit around the sleeping alcove’s perimeter. A cute plush model of a molecule I couldn’t identify sat in the corner by his elegant tri-D chess set; a few weapon-like instruments adorned the draperies at stylish angles; and a peculiar rack of little gold bells in an elongated hexagonal frame hung on the bare wall near the partition. Without quite knowing why, I felt as if those bells had something to do with _marriage_ , of all things. Oddly saddened by the notion, I wished I knew more about Vulcans’ social rituals, and about Spock’s experiences concerning them in particular.

Skating my hand along the curved, gilded top of a small box shaped like a treasure chest, I considered the comparatively Spartan appearance of my own quarters. I had always believed that a room should reflect its occupant, and I almost chuckled at the irony of the analytical Spock having such colorful and lavish quarters while his sappily romantic Human captain lived in an efficient but bland and austere cabin. Judging by his interior design, my commander was stoic on the outside but deeply passionate beneath the surface—though I didn’t even want to think about what Spock must have concluded about me based on my décor.

All these items in his most private space… were they things he’d brought with him to Starfleet so long ago, little comforts of home to help him ward off the melancholy loneliness of starship exploration? Or had he acquired them during his studies and during his tenure with my predecessor?

A pang of jealousy flew through me at the thought of Spock’s previous missions on our ship, the time he’d spent with his previous captain, the loyalty and dedication he’d obviously shown the man who sat in the _Enterprise_ ’s center seat before I’d even graduated the Academy or earned my lieutenant’s stripes. There were so many things I had yet to learn about my first officer, so many things that with each passing day I _ached_ to learn with greater and greater vehemence. True, he’d served under Captain Pike for at least eleven years, and that kind of tenure was bound to bring at least a mild sense of mutual attachment with it. Knowing that the six months he’d worked with me paled in comparison, I wondered bitterly if Spock missed him, or felt he was a better commanding officer than me.

My chin and my hands hurt all of a sudden. Apparently I’d been grinding my teeth and clenching my fists while my mind succumbed to those envious and insecure thoughts of my beloved Vulcan having a life and friends and maybe even _lovers_ of his own before I ever met him. I tried to slacken my jaw even as I unwittingly wrung my hands together. What if he was already involved in a relationship with someone in the crew? It seemed unlikely given his professionalism, but it was certainly possible. Wouldn’t he have mentioned something like that to me? Maybe we weren’t as close as I’d thought. Hell, maybe he had a wife and a whole gaggle of adorable little pointy-eared children waiting for him back on Vulcan. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of those possibilities before.

_Jim._

I jumped at the abrupt sound of Spock’s voice and wheeled around to face him.

But he was still asleep. I must have simply imagined him calling to me. It was admittedly somewhat of a disappointment, but then again it was probably for the best that he not wake until after I was gone.

_There is no other, Captain_ , his syrupy tones continued in my mind as I stared at his slumped form, wishing the words my lovesick brain was taunting me with were actually true. _I never desired romance until I first looked into your eyes._

Despite the implausibility of the chaste history I’d invented for Spock, all the petty fear and paranoia floated out of me while I watched him. His lips were turned up at the sides in that delightful smile he so seldom showed on duty. How could I bother myself fretting over his past friendships and potential loves when in that moment Spock was actively proving how much he trusted me? He was sleeping in front of me, leaving himself and his quarters open and vulnerable to me.

_I have never trusted anyone_ , my head whispered in Spock’s voice, _the way I trust you, James._

A warm breeze of affection washed over me as the notion, foolish though it no doubt was, worked its way into my consciousness and settled around me, already turning into an uncommonly certain belief. Frozen on the spot by what felt like a powerful but benevolent outside force, I knew it was dangerous to get my hopes up, to allow myself to trust anything I had possessively fabricated about the man I’d fallen in love with. But those words were already weaving a safe, snug cocoon around my heart, almost as if they had a will of their own.

Spock gave a kittenish snore that was slightly louder than most of his other breaths had been, snapping me out of my little reverie and back into action.

I didn’t want to invade his privacy, but I also hated to leave him sleeping in his uniform with nothing in arm’s reach to change into if he should wake up in the night. Admiring the array of personal grooming implements and various makeup containers sitting out on the shelf under his wardrobe mirror, I opened the curved drawers from the top down—science tunics and silky dress shirts, pants for all levels of on-duty formality, exercise garments and leisurewear—until I found what appeared to be Spock’s collection of unmentionables, pajamas, and other assorted small things like socks and undershirts. The stylish robes I’d seen him in on a few rare and magnificent occasions (and which haunted me in my masturbatory fantasies) must have been hanging in the other half of the circular closet.

Checking over my shoulder, I reassured myself the commander was still out and indulgently glided my hand over the top of a neatly-folded stack of boxer briefs. It was probably one of the weirdest things I had ever done purely out of amorous obsession. As my fingers hungrily danced on some of the soft fabric which regularly and directly rubbed against Spock’s most intimate body parts, I told myself I just wanted to feel _close_ to him… even though he was within sight in the next room, no more than three meters away. It took all my willpower and the pain of sucking my lips in past my teeth and clamping down on them _not_ to bend over and inhale the undoubtedly phenomenal aroma of said fabric.

Beside Spock’s underwear ( _Spock’s underwear!_ my libido shouted at me) was a stack of socks, then there were a bunch of stretchy tank tops and a few pairs of lounge pants all folded every bit as meticulously as the rest of his clothes. I plucked up the tank and the pajama bottoms that were atop their respective piles before closing the drawer and commanding myself to leave his closet alone. After putting the sleepwear in an easily-noticeable spot on the shelf near the headboard, I took a deep breath and faced the most daunting part of my little Spock-care ritual.

Stepping toward the dais topped with an intimidating statue of what I would have assumed was a gargoyle or griffin, I peered inside the concave bowl at the creature’s clawed feet to ensure that there was an adequate layer of sand and ash in its base. Spock had told me before that this was Shariel, the Vulcan god of death, though why the death god in particular was the one he kept his meditative incenses with was beyond me. I desperately craved more knowledge about his undisclosed sacraments and apparent spirituality, but I knew he was deeply private about such matters. My acquaintanceship with them would only grow with the kind of long-term, gradual building of trust that we had already established, which would have been perfectly fine if not for my perennial impatience around all things concerning Mr. Spock.

His selection of powdered incense varieties was instantly overwhelming. For one thing, there were even more of them than there were shades of eye shadows and lipsticks over on his wardrobe. They were arranged into categories by fragrance, as far as I could divine, on the decorative silk kerchief in front of the bowl: florals, fruits, spices, refreshing palette cleansers, and a group of musky desert scents similar to the woody and oceanic ones of Earth. I lifted each little jar to my nose in turn, trying to decide what would be most appropriate, or most likely to bring Spock pleasant dreams. My favorites were, not surprisingly, all in the bold, sensual family of traditional aphrodisiacs. Ultimately I decided on what smelled like a blend of cinnamon, jasmine, and vanilla that struck my Human olfactory senses as erotic, yes, but also relaxing.

After setting the incense to smoldering in its bowl, I took a few steps back and almost fell onto Spock’s bed: the fragrance was disarmingly poignant. Perhaps I had used too much? A moot point, since it was already saturating the whole cabin. My head spun for a few moments, so I went ahead and perched on the edge of the mattress until the dizziness subsided.

_Strong stuff_ , I thought. _Who would have guessed that a Vulcan would have such hedonistic tendencies?_ The irony that pleasure-seeking was such an intensely emotional lifestyle was not lost on me. In fact, I found it even more distracting than the heady aroma my body was still trying to acclimate to. _I suppose you would say it’s only logical to seek out those things that make your body feel good, wouldn’t you, my beautiful, mysterious man?_

_You indeed used quite a bit more powder than I myself would have_ , Spock’s voice murmured in my head—as if I wasn’t already discombobulated (and sexually aroused) enough. _However, yes, indulgence in pleasurable activities is not only logical but necessary to maintain a healthy balance among the mind, body, and spirit. The pursuit of logic and truth, while it is of paramount importance in Vulcan society, is nevertheless secondary to the practical needs inherent to any corporeal organism._

I was not nearly in a coherent enough frame of mind to follow whatever point my higher consciousness was trying to make through Spock’s delectable timbre.

_Vulcans_ , it continued, _have stomachs; thus, we experience hunger. We have lungs; thus, we must breathe. We have genitalia…_

My eyes shut on their own and I noticed my own breathing had accelerated significantly. I was grateful to be sitting down, especially when my semi-erection twitched itself back to attention.

_Ja—ames_ , the voice said in a teasing singsong. _Are you listening?_

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes and stared at the bedsheets while my head cleared.

_We have genitalia_ , dream-Spock said, his pitch dropping to a devastatingly seductive octave. _Thus, we experience sexual desire, arousal, pleasure, orgasm, and satisfaction. To deny oneself the fulfillment of these necessities would be as illogical as denying oneself food, drink, or air._

While I was certain it wasn’t probable, I did have to admit that it was at least possible that my first officer’s people were secretly far more decadent than any of the other Federation members realized. Their stoic veneer and their devout pursuit of objective truth had led Humans, Andorians, and Tellarites alike to assume that any of their baser instincts had been culled by Surak’s teachings. That was not necessarily the whole story, I realized, cradling my dizzy head in one hand and using the other to steady myself on Spock’s luxurious sheets.

My lewd inner monologue notwithstanding, there was really only one thing left for me to do while I was in the commander’s quarters.

_We’ll think on this Vulcan debauchery thing when we’re alone, alright?_ I gritted my teeth at the vindictive twinge my penis gave by way of response. _Ten minutes, I promise. Just… do not embarrass us while we’re still in his presence._

A small pained groan escaped me when I finally regained my feet and fought to ignore the ache in my loins. As long as Spock stayed asleep, though, I could limp all I wanted. Sparing a thought for the relatively early hour and the fact that he hadn’t eaten dinner, I made my way back to my executive officer and caressed the back of his head before I could stop myself.

When I realized what I was doing, I started to panic—but then Spock let out another tiny snore and the corner of his mouth twitched as if in contentment. The creases that formed in his skin at the action were almost unbearably lovely, probably due at least in part to the fact that they appeared so rarely. In his own subdued way, he grinned and smirked all the time. But there was a galaxy of difference between his mischievous or smug expressions and his genuine, uninhibited smiles. I had only seen the latter a few times, and only ever in private conversations with him, but any time he favored me with them I counted myself as fortunate as that group of astronauts back in 2061 who actually got to witness the transit of Saturn from their orbit around Neptune.

_Lucky bastards_ , I thought. _And me._

Repositioning myself, I planted my feet and started to lift up on Spock’s arms. It was my intention to use a fireman’s carry to get him to bed since I knew he was technically quite a bit heavier than I was. But as I attempted to get him out of the chair, he breathed a long, dulcet hum near my throat—stars help me, his voice was so deep I could just drown in it—and stirred just enough to worry me into paralysis.

The Vulcan kitty-cat, eyes still lidded, moved on his own while I remained stooped over in front of him. He slipped his wrists out of my grasp and curled his arms around either side of my neck. His hands clasped his forearms over my shoulders and his face came up to nuzzle under my jaw. Spock yawned (which was, without exaggeration, literally the most adorable thing I had ever seen in my entire life), pressed his cheek to my collarbone, and inadvertently pulled me that much closer with his weighty limbs as he relaxed back into his nap.

My entire soul liquefied at the absolutely _incredible_ feeling of having the man I loved burying his face in my throat. His breaths were gentle and warm, thrilling my skin and causing my entire body to shiver with delight and desire. I couldn’t get over how cuddly Spock was being; sure, he was in a sleepy haze, but I never would have taken him for being a snuggle-bug like myself. I almost swooned at the revelation that we would indeed be extremely compatible as bedmates, since apparently neither of us had any problem with getting up-close and personal when tired.

But that promising thought was best saved for later, rather like all the other thoughts I’d been having.

Meanwhile, my plan had to change. I wasn’t going to be able to drape Spock over my shoulder with his arms wrapped around my neck the way they were, but I doubted I could carry him in front of me. Just for kicks, though, and since no other brilliant ideas came to mind, I thought I might as well give it a shot. I leaned down to scoop his knees up in the crook of my arm and found him miraculously light. Not quite able to believe it, I shifted him into a bridal carry and turned to the bedroom, hugging his waist with all the tightness my desperate infatuation demanded.


	7. Chapter 7

My heart constricted and a lump caught in my throat at this new reality. I was carrying my breathtaking commander, who felt like utter bliss in my arms, to bed while he clung to me as greedily as if we were about to consummate our marriage in a honeymoon suite. His grip around my neck was surprisingly strong considering he was barely even conscious. The heat of the incense mixing with Spock’s extraordinary cologne had me feeling drunk. And on second thought, perhaps that smell in his hair was more like mulled apple cider than pumpkin pie… and maybe that note I’d been unable to identify before was spearmint. Whatever it was, my senses were overpowered by it, yet at the same time I felt like I would never get enough of it.

I murmured the command to put the office lights out as we stepped around the room divider. Walking him to the turned-down bed, I gingerly placed Spock on his mattress, guiding his legs out over the covers while trying to determine how I would extricate myself from his embrace. It was truly the last thing I wanted to do, and since his grip hadn’t loosened the least bit while I helped him unbend his knees, I took the liberty of perching next to him as I lowered both our torsos. Once I got his head on the pillows, I used both my hands to unwind his arms from around my neck.

Before I knew what was happening, his arms had folded together on my thigh and pulled mine on top of them. His fingers snuck into my sleeves and coiled softly around my wrists.

I froze. Every nerve in my arms that received contact with him smoldered like an ember gasping for more of the oxygen giving it life, the oxygen of his touch.

 _Oh, Spock_ , I thought, the strings of my heart pulled to their limits, _don’t do this to me. Don’t give me hope when there is none._

My hands squeezed around his arms, the velvety body hair dusted over them feeling like Heaven to my fingertips.

Then the phantom images came back, all at once and at least twice as vivid. This time, I shut my eyes and focused as hard as I could on what my mind was showing me.

It was instantly devastating. I was looking up into my own eyes, my own face, and I noticed some familiar drapes off to my right side. I was in Spock’s quarters, much like my physical body already was. But it felt like I was experiencing things from someone else’s perspective—maybe Spock’s, since it was, after all, his cabin.

The vision of me was stark naked, undulating in an unmistakably sexual rhythm above… well, me. Dream Jim’s eyelids were drooping but he kept steady eye contact with me, and a moment later, his hand came up to stroke the side of my face.

My actual cheek tingled as if it was really being touched.

Looking down his bare chest, I wasn’t quite able to see the place where I could _feel_ that we were joined, even though it was just a waking dream. But then Dream Jim’s hand guided my chin back until I was looking into his eyes again. He smiled and the circular motions of his hips slowed a little.

The sensations inside me—in my still virginal rectum—were exquisite. Indescribable. It was like I was making love with myself in this strange disembodied vision. The intrusion of what I assumed was my own penis felt oddly comfortable and familiar, even though I’d never been anally penetrated before in my life. And I felt abnormally safe there, lying underneath myself, pinned by my sweating weight, securely fenced in on both sides by Dream Jim’s arms.

Suddenly, another set of hands appeared, although they weren’t the hands I was accustomed to seeing. They were bonier, slimmer, far more elegant than my big meaty paws.

They were Spock’s hands.

The realization nearly knocked the breath right out of me. I was having this vision as if I was the _Enterprise_ ’s first officer himself. I was having one of my own usual fantasies—one in which Spock and I went at it with all the passion of an established couple deeply in love—but from the perspective of the man I usually imagined beneath or on top of me. Why would my brain ever have thought to do such a thing?

 _It must be the incense_ , I thought.

Dream Jim leaned in closer to me—to Dream Spock, that is—for a long, wet kiss. A moment later, his lips were meandering down the sharp clavicle and furry chest which had somehow attached themselves to my nervous system. My… no, Dream Spock’s hands wound their way into Dream Jim’s hair, causing him to hum. His hum, as it turned out, then caused Dream Spock’s groin (and therefore also my own) to pulsate with need, a desire that spread from pelvis to unbelievably _full_ and clenching rectum to throbbing heart to aching fists.

Tossing his head back, Dream Jim gave a wanton cry, presumably in response to Dream Spock’s and my clenching around him. When he thrust back inside us, his gaze raked over our lean body and his mouth stayed open, panting from his exertions and his ardor. He spoke then, but, just like before, I couldn’t make out what was said. It was a little clearer than the earlier daydreams’ audio had been, but still fuzzy and distorted. What I did hear sounded vaguely like Spock’s name, but the word he mumbled after that could have been just about anything, neither the sound nor the movement of his lips giving me any hints.

For my part, I was as out of breath as Dream Jim. Squinting my eyes open, I looked at the dozing Spock and was amazed to find his chest heaving beside me. His lips were attractively parted and his head was on its side, pressing into the pillow. I opened my eyes wider to see that his bangs had fallen out of place and little beads of sweat were peeking out on his forehead by the hairline. His mouth moved at the precise moment that I heard another voice in the fantasy, and this time the word came through my mind with the utmost clarity.

“James…”

My erection hammered against the briefs and pants confining it, surprised and excited— _oh… so excited!_—to have heard my own name in Dream Spock’s delicious murmur as well as the real Spock’s barely audible whisper. In my chest, my heart was beating so quickly I worried that I might be having an episode. When I felt just how close I was to orgasm, I bit down hard on my lip and (though I hated to do it) forced myself to untangle our arms and pull my hands away from him. I rose from the bed with as little disruption to the mattress as I could manage, given my delicate state.

Spock was so hypnotizing I had to look away. He was lying there so near to me, squirming the slightest bit, looking downright ravishing in his form-fitting black shirt and with his breaths coming hauntingly fast.

I distracted myself from the erotic magnetism of my scientist by sidling down to his legs, doing my best to remove his boots and socks without watching him in my peripheral vision or touching his skin. That was easier said than done with his socks. Each accidental glance of my fingers against his stubbly shins or calves sent another vibrant flash of the ongoing daydream through my brain and body.

For whatever reason, the vision seemed to come and go based on whether or not I had direct contact with him. From Spock’s subtle yet painfully gorgeous gyrations on the bed, though, it occurred to me that…

_No… please, dear cosmos, no…_

Was it possible he was receiving the vision from me by means of his touch telepathy? The notion mortified me beyond comprehension. Was I somehow broadcasting my lecherous desires into my first officer’s innocent, unsuspecting mind? Was I… _violating him_ in his dormant imagination? I thought I was going to be sick for a few seconds, doubled over above his bare feet, clutching my forehead and a handful of sheet until I regained my equilibrium.

If it was true, that explanation would make sense of the extraordinary physiological manifestations of sexual heat and arousal and muscle spasms I was most definitely feeling, and which Spock also appeared to be experiencing. However, it still wouldn’t explain why I was imagining myself in Spock’s place for, as far as I could remember, the first time ever. Neither would it explain why the scene kept rolling, as it were, without my actively seeing or creating it in my mind, the skips in continuity accounting for the moments I kept my hands off him completely. It was like _my_ fantasy was playing nonstop in _his_ head, and I could tune in or out of it any time I wished, although I missed whatever happened while my hands were lifted.

All things considered, the only option left that might keep any modicum of my honor intact was for me to make myself scarce as quickly as possible. I had to spare Spock the humiliation and degradation my sick mind was subjecting him to. I had to prevent my reproductive system from throwing itself a messy party while I was anywhere but my own quarters. My jaw clenched when he wiggled on the bed and let out a faint moan. I bit down so hard on my own teeth that they pounded in my skull from the effort and the pain.

Careful to avoid touching Spock’s bare feet, graceful ankles, or lower legs, I slipped the covers out and around his limbs and drew them up to his chest. Tearing my eyes away, I tossed his discarded socks into the laundry chute and stood his boots against the closet wall. As quietly as possible, I plugged the necessary codes into his food synthesizer to order him a nice hot meal with a temperature-controlled tray cover, grateful that I finally had an excuse for having memorized the commands for all the Vulcan items in the ship’s database.

The service console pinged a few seconds later, so I removed the tray of food and placed it on the half wall next to the grillwork room divider. If he woke up before six hours elapsed, he would have a modest dinner waiting for him right where he’d be sure to see it.

When I came back to the head of the bed, Spock had turned onto his side and was curled into a loose fetal position. I brought the sheet and duvet up over his arms to properly tuck him in. He had stopped breathing so hard, his sexual gyrations mercifully having ceased as well. Perhaps the explicit fantasy had finally gone away, allowing him to sleep in peace. His mouth was turned upward in a little smile and the tender picture he made broke my heart in the sweetest way. I felt I could simply stare at him for the rest of my life.

“Jim,” he whispered.

If he kept up that sort of thing, though, just staring wouldn’t be enough.

“Where are you?” Spock mumbled.

I froze. Was I supposed to answer? Or was he merely talking in his sleep? Would it embarrass him if I made my presence known?

His hand slithered out from the covers and blindly swept over the spot where I had been sitting. He hummed in a short version of that sexy purr from earlier, then said, “Come back to bed, Captain.”

Without meaning to, I obeyed. Before I knew it, I was perching on the edge of his mattress again, just inside the concavity formed by his chest and bent knees. I was distressed by the restless movement of his hand, which still seemed to be searching for me—or for that idealized version of me I had apparently transmitted into his head with my bawdy daydream. I wanted to take his fingers in my own, but I knew now what that would mean, and the last thing I intended to do was make him go through any more of that nightmare I’d thrust upon him, however unwittingly.

I settled for placing my hand on his upper arm, which was covered by the short sleeve of his top. Had I not been so distracted by his beauty, I might have taken pride in the lack of tension in those strong muscles. As it was, though, all I could think about was how much I wished I could slide under the covers with him, nuzzle the tip of his nose, guide his arms to encircle my waist, and kiss him senseless until we both fell asleep, or soared into the next dimension in tandem orgasms.

The dim light played gracefully on Spock’s unguarded features. His red curtains gave the whole room a passionate hue, and combined with the incense it made for the perfect backdrop to a long evening and night of slow, gentle lovemaking. If I ever _could_ bring myself to try and seduce him, and if by some miracle he allowed me to succeed at the endeavor, his quarters would likely prove overwhelming to my hopelessly romantic heart. It was so warm and cozy, secluded and intimate. In that moment, it felt like it was our own private cave on a new and uninhabited planet, with all the gravity of a place so holy that the only permissible activity within its walls was the kind of soul-demolishing physical, spiritual, and mental union that I just _knew_ Spock and I would share if he ever returned my love.

My thumb rubbed back and forth on his bicep of its own accord. A shiver ran down my spine when Spock exhaled more loudly and deeply than he’d been breathing since I got him tucked in. I almost whimpered aloud when his torso angled backward a bit in an unconscious gesture which looked so easy and natural that I could only think to interpret it as his body opening itself up to me, exposing more of itself to me.

Of course the notion that Spock could ever possibly want me or my touch on any level, conscious or not, was preposterous. But who stood to get hurt by my indulging in the idea for a little while? Only me. I could deal with that; I had been dealing with it all evening and, indeed, for the previous six months. And the commander would never have to know.

His dark bangs, lashes, and brows stood out in striking contrast to his pale skin. His high cheekbones, his full lips, his masculine jaw were all beckoning to my hand, which had started to migrate up Spock’s shoulder in their direction.

“Where,” he said, his voice a sultry rumble.

Not sure what he meant or whether there was more to his question, I stilled my fingers, flattening them over his collarbone. From the corner of my eye, I saw his hand crawling toward my free one, so I lifted it out of his reach and petted his enchantingly disheveled bangs. It was a struggle to make myself steer clear of his skin as I stroked his hair, but I knew it was the only honorable thing to do, especially considering I was still touching him without his even being awake to consent to it.

“Mmm,” Spock hummed. “Where... mm… where are your lips, James?”

 _Behave yourself, Jim_ , I thought as my hormones begged to do just the opposite. My fingers trembled and the breath caught in my throat. _No. You are not kissing him. Absolutely not!_

With his bangs swept back and caught between two of my fingers, he looked so peaceful and natural—like something out of an ancient book of fairy tales. As I gazed at his handsome features, my body slowly leaned nearer and nearer to him. I adjusted the hand that was holding me up, bringing it lower to gain more balance. Through the tight fabric of his tee-shirt I could feel his sturdy pectorals, as well as some of the little tufts of chest hair scattered all over his front and which I’d glimpsed on a few rare occasions. I imagined it was downy soft; I only wished I could peel his shirt up far enough to find out for myself.

“One kiss,” Spock said, giving me a slight jolt of surprise. “My love… please… one more kiss before we sleep…”

My heart cried out in agony. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and, unthinking, hung my head while I scratched and clawed within my consciousness for patience, for even a single atom of resistance to Spock’s temptation. When my chin almost touched my own sternum, Spock inhaled sharply and wiggled beneath me. I’d either misjudged or completely forgotten the distance left between us: the unruly hairs over my own forehead that constantly fell out of place and into my eyes had grazed him, probably on the nose or cheek. Not daring to move, I waited, my whole body a wound-up coil of desperate energy that had no outlet for release.

“You smell so pleasant, my _t’hy’la_ ,” my scientist mumbled.

I had no idea what the Vulcan word meant, but he had said it after a compliment that caused my blood to race and in such a loving tone that I understood it to be a term of endearment. The very idea of my outstanding first officer using any kind of pet name with me cut straight to the nerves shielded… no, _buried_ within the core of my being. Moisture threatened behind my eyelids, so I swallowed deliberately and took a deep, steadying breath to suppress them, then lifted my head back up—very slowly this time, and with more regard to our proximity.

If it was possible, his face was even lovelier and his body even more resplendent than they had been mere seconds before. The inner ends of his eyebrows had risen, making the angle considerably less severe, and those creases around his mouth which I adored so much had appeared with his wide, close-lipped smile. That smile had also brought a few charming crow’s feet with it, ornamenting his sparkling eyelids as perfectly as if they’d been carved there by whatever master artist had sculpted the rest of him. His chest vibrated erratically under my hand, the purring sound starting and stopping unpredictably, probably one of those automatic responses that nevertheless required a certain threshold of lucidity to sustain.

“James,” he whispered again, the sound an absolute balm for my lovesick soul. “Please… kiss me…”

It was more than I could bear any longer. Squaring my jaw, I weaved my hand into his hair against the pillow and brought my face within centimeters of his. Our noses almost touched. I tilted my head so our mouths were aligned. Summoning all the courage I had left, I took a deep breath in and—

My communicator chirped from its spot behind my right hip.

I wasn’t quite sure whether to be disappointed or grateful for the interruption. Either way, it forced me to withdraw from my position hovering over Spock, though his hand shot up out of nowhere and grabbed my sleeve at the wrist, keeping my violently shaking palm on his chest. I saw his eyelids shifting, indicating he was at least still asleep, and marveled at both his strength while unconscious as well as his extensive (and wholly unexpected) sleep-talking.

Extricating my other hand from beneath Spock’s head, I kept my misty eyes trained on him while I procured my communicator and opened it.

“Kirk here,” I murmured, trying my best to avoid waking my beloved Vulcan, whose hearing I knew was much more acute than mine or any of our Human shipmates’.

“Jim,” came McCoy’s voice, “did you happen to sign off on that requisition I sent you for hypospray injectors?”

My brain took a long moment to decode the doctor’s question. Mentally, emotionally, I was still immersed in my physical surroundings. I swallowed before fumbling back, “Uhm… oh, actually… I’m sorry, Bones, I haven’t been back to my quarters yet. I’ll do it first thing, though.”

“No rush, no rush,” he said, sounding rather relaxed. “Just thought I’d give you a poke, see if you want to come join us for a drink. Spock okay? We missed y’all lovebirds at dinner.”

Blushing fiercely even though Spock gave no indication of having heard anything, I smiled out of nervousness and embarrassment. But I also felt a ripple of hopefulness spread through me from McCoy’s teasing, as if his pretending Spock and I were a couple would somehow make it true. And it was always nice to be reminded that he and Scott were looking out for me. Sometimes I wondered if they thought of me as their puppy. Or maybe their son.

Anyhow, it was no use trying to feign ignorance of Spock’s current whereabouts or condition: both of my ship dads were sensitive enough to my movements (and plenty smart enough) to have put two and two together.

“He’s fine, we’ve just been discussing, eh…” I softly cleared my throat to play for time. “The ship’s manifest, shore leave rotations, you know the drill. We took dinner in his cabin.”

“Well,” McCoy said, the background noises indicating he was putting his feet up on Scott’s desk, “you fellas are welcome to share a nightcap or two with us. We’re just shootin’ the breeze here.”

Chuckling in an attempt to sound casual, I said, “Aw, thanks, hon. Actually though… Spock is pantomiming that he has some reading to do, and I was just getting up to go shower and maybe turn in early for once.”

After audibly taking a swig of what was no doubt a brandy and giving a cute little satisfied exhale, McCoy said, “Suit yourselves. You two get some good beauty sleep, y’hear? Lord knows both your faces need it!” He snorted, and Scotty’s guffawing was distant but unmistakable.

“Speak for yourself, old man,” I teased back, genuinely enjoying the playful banter despite its having thwarted true love’s first kiss. “See you in the morning. Kirk out.”

They were still laughing when I flipped my communicator shut and reattached it to my waist.

Returning my full attention to the sleeping prince, I felt my chest constrict at the reminder of what had almost happened, what I had almost done to him. It was thoroughly unlike me even to _think_ of doing anything remotely sexual without my partner being conscious, sober, and completely consenting. Shame filled me from head to toe. Yet the idea of leaving, of taking my hand away from Spock’s chest, of no longer being alone with him in his romantic quarters made me want to cry.

 _I wish you were awake_ , I thought. _I wish that you had actually invited me to be this close to you, to be sitting on your bed… to kiss you. I wish we could have a first kiss, and an endless number of kisses after it, and that they would all be what you really, consciously wanted._

Spock hummed with his next exhalation.

_I wish I could hear that sound all night, every night, Spock. I wish I could pull your arms around me and hear your gentle breathing in my ear every time I wake up._

His lips twitched again. That subtle indication of a smile would never get old.

I leaned in once more, being careful not to put too much of my weight on his chest. My free hand brushed his bangs away from the middle of his forehead. Sighing helplessly, hopelessly, I shut my eyes.

When my lips pressed against the warm skin which usually hid behind his curtain of hair, I had another brief vision of the two of us sharing a passionate kiss. The disembodied feeling of an eager tongue suddenly moved behind my sealed lips, causing my breath to hitch and my toes to curl. I hadn’t known that sensation in years, so I let myself linger, kissing his forehead and devotedly stroking his hair in encouragement. The tremendous _fullness_ that my brain perceived to be lazily caressing every surface inside my mouth was earth-shattering. Was the phantom tongue Spock’s, I wondered, or possibly my own? Did it matter?

My softening erection pulsed with desire from all the new stimulation, and I knew I had to resist. It was just so hard to deny myself the rapture of that mysterious foreplay. I had all but forgotten what a deep, soulful kiss could feel like—although I’d _never_ felt as engulfed by arousal and joy as I did in that moment. Nothing I had ever experienced before could compare to the supernova erupting in my heart and mind.

I abruptly pulled away from Spock’s skin when every organ and nerve and muscle from my waist down began to tense up and tremble the exact way they did mere seconds before an orgasm. Clamping down on every iota of willpower I had, it didn’t even register in my head that only a few moments before, I had been halfway flaccid. My penis practically screamed in desperation at the torture being exacted upon it by whatever supernatural or scientific phenomena were controlling things in that room. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so hard in all my life.

“You had darn well better actually be asleep, mister,” I whispered to him through my gritted teeth. As my body slowly backed away from the edge of its climax, I caressed his hair and almost regretted having wished he was awake. What if he was only faking being asleep after all? I doubted he would do such a sinister thing, besides the fact that it would make no sense for him to do so anyway. But if he secretly _was_ only pretending to doze…

_Then you would know that I just kissed you._

A bolt of white-hot fear—or maybe it was paranoia—blazed a trail from my brain stem all the way down my spine. What if he was faking sleep in order to find out what I, as his friend and commanding officer, might do in a scenario where he was vulnerable, incapacitated, trusting everything to my care and judgment? Well, then he would have just discovered that I was dishonorable enough to put in all that effort of getting his incense and his dinner ready, of carrying him and tucking him into his bed, only to make all my alleged chivalry null and void by taking advantage of him at the last moment.

“Spock,” I said, “I’m so sorry. I…”

Just then, his hand moved from where it had pinned me at the wrist. His fingers slid down my sleeve onto my knuckles and wrapped around to the tips of my own fingers. Something that felt vaguely like static electricity sparked between our hands at the gesture.

Another vision, and it was a picture of myself again. I saw my own blissed-out smile, my head lying on a pillow, and a graceful hand reaching out to touch the curves of my ear. It cupped my cheek, and the thumb tickled the corner of my mouth, making my eyes close and my grin widen.

 _Do not be sorry_ , Spock’s voice said in my mind, as pristine and clear as if he’d spoken aloud. _I want you here._ His grip tightened around my hand. _I want you to stay. Stay with me, tal-kam._

My heart must really have been desperate not only to have perfectly mimicked Spock’s cadence, but to have it saying such sentimental things to me, and to fabricate more Vulcan-esque gibberish as placeholders for terms of endearment. The coincidence of his facial muscles relaxing and his fingers stroking mine was unlikely, but I knew it was only happenstance.

Spock didn’t want _me_. He would never want me. Why on Earth or Vulcan _would_ he? I wasn’t what _any_ one was looking for in a mate, as busy as I was with the ship and crew, as devoted as I was to my work because I had nothing else.

Did Vulcans even acknowledge or allow same-sex pair bonds anyway? He would never be able to sire children through me, so I was of no biological utility. Such a relationship was probably frowned upon as the epitome of illogic. And I certainly wouldn’t be an ideal candidate for the kind of psychic connection he had mentioned once, what with my stupid species being disappointingly non-telepathic. Not to mention that, contrary to popular myth, I had so little experience in matters of the heart—and my reluctance to give myself physically to anyone who hadn’t agreed to a mutual sharing of body, mind, and soul would probably just come off as annoyingly conservative and prudish.

It was a harsh reality. But my sitting there on his bed, holding his hand, allowing myself to get so familiar and intimate with him… It was only going to make the pain of his rejection that much harder to accept whenever he inevitably found out how I truly felt about him.

 _I do want you_, dream Spock said. _I want all of you, everything you were, are, and will be. I love—_

Hurriedly, I yanked my hands away from him. I covered my mouth and strained against the suffocating agony that struck me. I couldn’t bear to hear his voice—even just the uncanny version of it that my mind conjured in this room—saying those words when I knew they were not and would never be true. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes and I blinked them away, sucking on my lower lip and trying to breathe evenly again.

A strange haze seemed to fall over Spock’s face even as I watched. His lips drooped and his eyebrows returned to their customary neutral position. Head rolling to the side, he made a grunt-like sound as his limbs shifted, the hand I’d been holding casting about atop the duvet.

I dared not imagine it was looking for my own hand.

No matter how hard I tried to force it, my body simply wouldn’t cooperate and leave the Vulcan to sleep in peace. It was as if I was being compelled by some power outside myself, compelled to wait just another minute, to watch him breathe and settle into his sheets just a little while longer.

“Jim…” It wasn’t even loud enough to be considered a whisper. Spock’s fingers restlessly curled and unfurled over his midsection, beckoning to me.

Unable to resist, I clasped them tight between both of my hands in what I insisted to myself was my last act before departing.

 _Oh, Spock_ , I thought, _if only you knew._ I rubbed my cheek over the smooth back of his hand, aware of just how pathetic I was being—but not having the energy to care. _If only I could show you…_

I knew it was outrageous, my mind seeing what it wanted or chose to see, but his face had lightened again and that endearing little smile was back. My heart aching at the sight, I brought his knuckles to my lips.

 _I love you, Commander_ , I thought, memorizing the texture and temperature of his hand as best I could. _I love you so much. So, so much._

Spock inhaled so deeply his whole body seemed to rise up from the bed. His purring started up again in earnest this time, sustained and at full force. He almost glowed where he lay before me, but it was probably the dim light and the incense getting to my head. And I was certain I only imagined his fingers squeezing mine in a last effort to keep me from letting go.

But then, an inexplicable and overwhelming rush of love, affection, desire, and _need_ washed over me, yet it hadn’t originated within me. In fact, it simply piled onto the myriad emotions I was already suffering through.

At that, the bizarre singularity or whatever-it-was in Spock’s quarters which had taken over me finally had me convinced that I was losing my grip on reality altogether. It was high time I left, cleared my head, had something to eat, and gave my over-excited body a tiny bit of relief, though certainly not in that order.

“Goodnight, my Vulcan angel,” I whispered before tucking his hand under the covers and rising from his bed.

I quietly commanded the computer to turn the lights out. The room became dark except for the eerily comforting reddish-orange glow coming from the bowl of the incense shrine. With a half-hearted smile at the bittersweet circumstances, I tugged the duvet up to Spock’s shoulders and forced myself to turn away from his divine face.

Swallowing hard, and dreading the painful awareness of my loneliness that I was doomed to feel for the rest of the evening, I strode to the door of the idyllic sanctuary. Before pressing the button to open it, I took a deep breath to center myself. I had to cram all of those loving, yearning, tear-jerking emotions back into the bottle that usually lived stowed away in the furthest recesses of my heart. It wouldn’t do to have a starship captain moping or weeping as he roamed the corridors—even just for the few meters from Spock’s door to my own.

 _I love you, Spock_ , I thought as I stepped out into the hallway.

 _And I you, James_ , his voice said in my mind before the door slid closed behind me.

I didn’t hear him speaking in my head again for the rest of the night, and I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vulcan translations:
> 
>  _t’hy’la_ = friend/brother/lover  
>  _tal-kam_ = dear; a beloved person; used as a term of endearment
> 
> *Translations taken from the Vulcan Language Dictionary at https://www.starbase-10.de/vld/ and korsaya.org


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, exquisite artworks provided by the magnificent [marlinspirkhall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinspirkhall)!!

The smell of my fresh cup of coffee is just what I need to calm and warm myself on this dreary day. The fog still hasn’t lifted from the city, and my spouse is nestled in bed, so I’m on my own now, left to reminisce and attempt to ignore the uncommonly vigorous erection I’ve developed under my bathrobe. Thinking about that evening with Spock always arouses me, it seems. If I do a few chores around the apartment, though, I might be able to wear it down. My equipment has gotten old like the rest of me, and I get riled up less frequently and less easily these days. However, at the moment my penis is throbbing in my briefs as robustly as it regularly would when I was in my thirties and forties.

I take a few sips of the custom spicy blend my partner concocted for me several years back. The cinnamon and nutmeg flavors hit just the right chord in my body. The coffee renews my energy, helping me perk back up (well, all the parts of me that still need it) after a long hour and a half of being on my feet, rubbing those tough muscles, and replaying old memories in the clouds outside our wall of windows.

Considering the various things that should probably get done today, I wander to the den and stare out at the mist. It conceals almost everything we can usually see from our curved vista windows, including all but the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge’s towers. I laugh at myself a little because, as I’d finished my spouse’s massage, I apparently carried them to bed without even being aware of it, having mimicked the actions I’d taken around Spock’s quarters in my memory. Hopefully it proves to be a restful nap; both of us have been recovering from mild head colds which McCoy continues to insist still have no cure despite all the medical advances we’ve made. Will wonders never cease?

Trensu, our black cat, makes her little plurping sound to announce her presence. She brushes up against my bare leg, her fur nearly as soft as Spock’s hair. Steadying my mug in my hand, I crouch down to pet the back of her neck and under her chin. She begins to purr, the sound reminding me every time of my soulmate, my one true love, the half-Vulcan who long ago became so much a part of me that I know I’ll never be able to get him out of my heart.

 _Or my loins_ , I think with another self-deprecating chuckle as said loins throb again, unwilling to let me forget them.

“Jim?”

I’m startled back into the moment, the sound of my name in that tired voice immediately worrying me.

 _I thought you were asleep?_ I think, standing up and grimacing not only from the aches in my knees and back, but from the terrible cracking noises they make.

Walking to our bedroom door, I peer inside. It’s still only lit by the negligible amount of light coming in from the north wall. Even though it’s entirely composed of floor-to-ceiling windows with a sliding glass balcony door built into the middle, the room is nevertheless almost as dim as it is at twilight on a clear evening.

“What’s wrong?” I say, noting the humanoid-shaped blob of blankets on the far side of our giant bed. I finally make eye contact through the poor light and the cocoon of blankets.

All I receive in response is a nod of the head peeking out, indicating that I’m to come closer.

Apprehensive, I pad over to the bedside and see a hand instructing me to sit down on the edge. As gently as I can, I lower myself onto the mattress, placing my coffee cup on the side table. I bring my leg nearest to the blanket blob up until my knee nudges it and the sole of my foot meets my opposite thigh.

 _You’re supposed to be resting_ , I think, putting on a rueful smile for show.

“I am wholly incapable of achieving the rest you think I need,” my mate says sternly, eyes glinting dangerously.

“And why is that?” I ask, reaching to pull the covers down so I can actually properly see the person I’m talking to.

Suddenly there’s a hand inside my robe, cupping my burning erection through my briefs. Then the hand is stroking up and down my hard penis before I have time to react.

“Unngh, _honey_ ,” I whine at the delicious friction, “I thought you weren’t feeling well…” I still that naughty hand at the wrist, somewhat embarrassed by how _good_ it feels. But then another hand appears at my face, having worked its way out of the covers while I was distracted by the unexpected sexual onslaught.

My half-hearted protest goes unacknowledged.

“Thanks to your care, I believe I have recovered fully. I now require a different form of… medicine.”

“Oh, God, _Spock_ ,” I drawl, turning his name into a five-syllable word. Unable to resist him any longer, my hips wantonly thrust upward into his magnificently skilled hand.

 _Yes, James_ , Spock says in my head, over our matrimonial telepathic link. _Cry out my name like I know you want to. Give me your precious moans and tell me what happens to you at my touch._

“You could just see for yourself,” I manage to croak out, covering the hand that’s teasing the psi-points on my face but not initiating a meld.

“Where is the fun in that?” he says aloud. Not giving me time to answer, he surges up off the bed and captures my mouth with his in a passionate, invasive kiss. His tongue thrusts itself between my lips and intertwines with my own.

I feel myself being pulled down and atop the gorgeous man I’d married at the very first opportunity he’d given me. His slender hand caresses my imprisoned penis just the way he has learned over our decades together as husbands that I crave it most. He’s absolutely ruthless, rubbing me without letting up while simultaneously planting a rapid-fire series of utterly debauched images in my brain. His eroticism and his sex drive are as voracious as ever—evidently, he’d been telling the truth about his recovery.

“ _Adun_ ,” I say when he frees my mouth so I can get a much-needed breath. “ _Ashal-veh_ , wait.”

Completing the stroke he’d begun, Spock then goes completely motionless under me. His dilated eyes glaze over with what looks like a fear of rejection, grayer than the outdoors.

“What’s… _hnnf!_ ” My body is desperate for more, but I force my pelvis to stop rotating against those magical fingers. “What’s gotten into you?” I say it with a little smile, in my gentlest, most affectionate tone. Our bodies fully aligned, I settle my weight on him the way I know _he_ craves the most; I need to reassure my lover and see the spark in his eyes burn away the fog that’s clouded them.

“Dearest,” he says, bringing both of his hands to anchor my face above him and staring deep into my eyes. When he wiggles, I feel a telltale wetness seeping into my briefs from his abdomen. “The weather is dreadful. I am freshly relaxed from your expert massage therapy. And you shamelessly spent the entire duration of that massage causing both of us to become sexually aroused by reliving that first time you touched me so intimately.”

I know my cheeks are turning red, but I keep my mouth shut.

“I believe that after such torment,” Spock continues, “you _owe_ me a long, lazy day of lovemaking, snuggling, and more lovemaking until I am thoroughly satisfied that you’ve paid the price for your actions.”

The lust charging back and forth between our minds spikes. Rising onto my elbows, I maneuver the covers around us and finally realize that my sneaky husband has stripped himself totally naked.

 _It was the work of only a few moments when you left me to refill your coffee_ , Spock says in my mind.

I beam at him with all the love in my soul. My knees might be weaker than they once were, but they still ratchet those familiar, lithe legs open quite effectively.

For his part, Spock is panting and squirming, looking so phenomenal lying there waiting to receive me that it hurts. He lets his thighs fall open for me, the most natural sense of ease governing the movement. He has advanced in age too, of course, albeit a little more slowly than I have, and he’s gone through death and back and through the rapid growth of a brand new body. But it’s no secret that he is every bit as sensual, hypnotic, and in total control over me as he’s always been.

Unable to wait another second, I kiss him again. Feeling his lips and tongue rubbing against my own brings instant gratification, although not as thorough a gratification as what comes from the longer game we’re beginning.

Looking down when we part, I see that my spouse is indeed _extremely_ ready to make love. His genital sheath is swollen, bulging outward a tad. I know from experience that this means the penis inside is iron-hard and in a hurry to be freed. Spock knows how much I enjoy watching his reproductive organs getting excited for me, so—bless his soul—probably half the times that we have intercourse, he intentionally prevents his erection from emerging until I’ve had the chance to play inside his sheath a little and “coax” him out. I know it’s a façade and that he’s only ever done it for my benefit, but it drives me wild every time.

A clear, thick bead of liquid seeps out from the opening of his sheath as I stare and wet my lips.

“Jim,” he says with a fair amount of urgency.

“Oh, _ha’su_ ,” I say, dragging my hands down his furry chest. I make a little tutting sound and put as much exaggerated sympathy into my voice as possible. “This looks so _pain_ ful, let me help.” Gently, I slip my fingers into his sheath and find it to be positively flooded with his marvelous lubricating fluids. “Mm… you’re dripping wet, _k’diwa_. I’m so sorry to have neglected you this long.” My eager fingertips probe around inside my exquisite lover, reveling at every bit of velvety tissue they can reach of his private inner compartment.

“Unnnghh…” Spock moans. While I feel around in his sheath, he gets to work untying my bathrobe. “ _Weht, Dzheims_ …”

The sound of his voice and the knowledge that he’s already so fired up that some of his spontaneous vocalizations are in his native language make me shiver with anticipation. He wants more, so I withdraw my fingers to spread his moisture all over my hand, then repeat the motions.

“ _Lok t’nash-veh_ ,” he says, his eyes closed as I slide back in. “ _Estuhl’uh… lok t’nash-veh…_ ”

“What’s that you want?” I say teasingly, circling my fingertips around his inner walls and intentionally avoiding his erection. “Is this not enough, my lovely _adun_?”

Groaning, Spock tries to squirm so that my hand will give him direct contact, but I know all his tricks by now and follow all of his quick feints. Giving up, he resumes disrobing me and I lean in for a kiss.

By the time our mouths separate, he’s opened my robe, gotten my unoccupied arm out of it completely, and shuffled the other sleeve down to my elbow. Burying my free hand in his hair when he looks up at me with a worried wrinkle between his brows, I send him an admiring wave of reassurance through our marital bond. I have to pull my fingers out of his sheath to get out of my bathrobe, but I feel so bad leaving it empty even for those few seconds.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” I say, keeping my tone low in the hot air. As soon as my wet hand leaves his body, I yank it out of the remaining sleeve and bring my fingers right back to Spock once I’m free.

His face calms in relief.

“There, now,” I murmur, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Teasing his sheath more vigorously, I kick my robe out of the way—down the bed within our bubble of sheets, so one of us will have to go fishing for it when we’re done. Meanwhile, I kiss him several times, shallow little pecks and licks at the sides of his mouth and over his cheeks.

In response to my taunting, Spock finally gets his fingers into the waistband of my briefs and begins his own torture. He pulls them down far enough for my tip to feel the fresh air, but then he settles the elastic just under my corona and hips. His hands migrate to my backside, which they begin squeezing and stroking with gusto, but my penis remains captive and throbs heavily from the new strain on its circulation.

“Ah, so that’s how it’s going to be.” I huff out a chuckle, kiss his earlobe, and still my soaked fingers in his sheath. Barely connecting my index finger with the extreme end of his penis, I mutter, “Is _this_ what you wanted me to touch, kitten?” Then I suck his earlobe between my lips and languidly circle my fingertip around his urethral meatus.

Spock’s impassioned cry and the spasms that cause his back to arch up off the bed are red-hot phaser blasts straight to my libido.

_Bullseye._

Humming in satisfaction, I softly tickle his glans with my fingers and his earlobe with my teeth. I luxuriate in the sleek pasture of his hair, having promised to myself from that first time _never_ to take for granted any opportunity to play with his velvet locks. My tongue eventually laps out again and strays onto the node behind his ear that makes him purr. While I lick that magical spot, my fingers give Spock’s sensitive tip plenty of attention.

Sure enough, Spock begins to purr, and the feline song combined with his gasping breaths and his moans is, to this day, the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. He instinctively pulls me closer, and my erection picks up on some of the tantalizing vibrations of his body. His penis—mostly full already—thickens even further under my care. Before long, he can’t contain it within his sheath no matter how hard he concentrates. As it begins to push its way out of its compartment, I pull my slick fingers out of him and hold them still, flattening my hand palm up to receive and cradle him (and catch some of the fluid that inevitably trickles out, too).

“That’s it, I’ve got you,” I babble only half-consciously. I pray he can hear and understand me through the confusion that I know often scrambles his mind at this stage of his arousal. “Mm, you’re so good, _ha’su_ , just take it easy.”

Losing his grip around my back, Spock’s hands skate erratically along my sides. He’s happily trembling like always, to my immense satisfaction.

With a few more sweet nothings, I pull up a bit on my elbow and watch as Spock’s body finishes its dazzling transformation, his sheath distending at the base of his penis, adding to his length. His organ fills my waiting hand, the heft and circumference of it feeling inexplicably perfect every time I hold it. It’s more color-saturated than usual, though, the same way my own gets when I’m achingly excited or on the verge of orgasm.

“I’m so sorry,” I say in earnest to my bondmate while cuddling his throbbing phallus in my lightly curled fingers. Feeling a tad guilty, I swallow hard and cast plenty of sympathetic pulses through our mental connection. “This really does look uncomfortable. I’m sorry I have so little control over my fantasizing.”

Spock opens his eyes lazily and we stare at each other for a delicious moment as he gets his bearings. His pupils are fully dilated, bound only by a sliver of the warm hazelnut irises that pleasantly haunt my dreams. The attractive blush consuming his cheeks accentuates the glorious darkness of his eyes, the depth of his gaze. And the paleness of the rest of his face—especially his forehead—sparkles in contrast with the curtain of inky bangs I’ve parted.

I’m speechless, transfixed by Spock’s other-worldly radiance. Sweeping through his ruffled bangs once more, I then repurpose my free hand to petting the tender skin at the outer corner of his eye. The flutter of his lashes stops my heart; I know this is a delicate spot for my Vulcan, my thumb actually brushing along the edge of his psi-point as I caress him. Altogether, I’m so enchanted by him and by his willing vulnerability that I fear I might suffocate. The amounts of love, trust, and indivisibility which constantly flow between us in perfect balance swell inside me to such proportions that I’m surprised my body doesn’t literally burst from the pressure of containing it all.

“There is no need,” he says, “for you to lie to me.”

My hand quivers around my husband’s erection. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Have I lied to him recently? What was I saying a few moments ago? A befuddled cloud takes over my brain, and I can feel my expression glazing over.

Then Spock’s voice cuts through my mental fog.

 _You claimed you were sorry_ _for fantasizing about us so often. So vividly._

Right, I remember now. Giddy at the playful wrinkles around Spock’s eyes and mouth, I feel my fingers instinctively resume their quiet rubbing around his girth.

 _I also inferred_ , he went on, _that you’re sorry to have caused my body to respond to your loudly broadcast erotic daydreams in its customary manner. Yet I suspect your apology was offered out of politeness rather than sincere contrition, since you typically seem to enjoy tormenting me during our arousal-building pre-coital formalities._

His eyes haven’t strayed from mine this whole time. However, his hands have regained their steady confidence and are now smoothing their way up and down and all over my naked chest in wonderfully distracting symmetrical motions.

“Thus I say to you again,” Spock says aloud, giving me a bit of a start, “that there is no need for you to lie to me.”

All I can think to do at the moment is close my eyes and hum in pleasure at the softness of his graceful palms and fingers petting me. It’s a tangible relief to have his hands on my body, as it always has been. My hips stutter against his pelvis. Although my phallus aches for Spock—especially the tip, which is peeking out from my underwear and begging for his touch or his mouth or his rectum or just _anything_ —my surging endorphins remind me just how exquisite this ritual is, our gentle, unhurried teasing and savoring of one another. I _want_ this passionate intimacy with my mate every waking millisecond of every day. It feels so incredibly _good_ to want him; to have him lying under me with his legs and his sheath open for me; to see and hear and smell and taste his desire through every nerve of my body as well as through our overwhelming telepathic marriage bond.

 _Beloved_ , Spock thinks to me, _I, too, derive an unfathomable amount of pleasure simply from the act of wanting you. Thinking about you, dreaming of you, looking at you… all of these bring my very katra a sense of fulfillment the capacity and nature of which I’m afraid I cannot properly articulate._

“You’re right,” I say around a moan. Gathering some of the generous fluid that’s still being secreted from the pores of his shaft, I smile as he writhes when my fingers slide to his perineum. The whole span from his base to his entrance has firmed up now, thanks to the heaviness of his hypersensitive testicles hiding just beneath the skin there. “I’m not sorry at all for daydreaming, or for getting you so worked up.”

A long but pleasant silence passes while I leisurely adjust our positions on the bed. I encourage him to spread his thighs even farther apart so I can devote my fingertips to rubbing small circles into the delicate skin between the base of his penis and the adorable little pucker of his anus. For a few seconds, I consider asking him to lift his hips so I might get my free hand below the small of his back, that spot just north of his coccyx where the root nerves leading down to the internal testes at his perineum send goosebumps all over his body when he’s touched there. The lovely and little-known erogenous zone typically only requires five or six minutes of stimulation before Spock turns to absolute jelly in my arms.

But I dismiss the idea. Taking our sweet time is, for now, a far more decadent and far more rewarding experience than racing to see which of us can trigger the other’s orgasm first. Besides which, we’re both so relaxed and contented from the hypnotic rhythms of Spock’s earlier massage that sexual climax hardly seems important at all yet to either of us.

I love this marvelous creature so profoundly it burns in every millimeter of me. And I’m determined to enjoy him at as laid-back a pace as we can manage.

His hands are getting needier. They’ve moved to stroking my stomach and my flanks, getting nearer to the lowered and straining waistband of my briefs every moment.

It’s suddenly more than I can stand to be apart from his lips. Without warning, I bat away his roving fingers and bring our faces together.

_Oh, Spock…_

He interlaces our digits, presses his palm into mine with vigor. His mouth is a cool, refreshing spring for my blazing cells and boiling bloodstream. My fiery tongue hides in him, safe, soothed, hoping never to leave.

 _James_ , he thinks back.

I’m left breathless from the euphoria of knowing that Spock is here, worshipping my body, willing to be kissed and made love to by me. _Spock._ Of Vulcan. Son of Sarek. My commander, my first officer, literally the man of my dreams. After all the agony of those days so long ago, the flirting, the desperate glances, the casual brushes that I feared would be my only opportunities to be close to him, the soul-shredding certainty that this one man who meant more to me than life itself would never return my feelings—after all that, here I am in bed with him, married and bonded to him, looking back fondly on the decades we’ve already enjoyed together and forward to the unknowable future but knowing nonetheless that he will always be with me. Now, still, again, ever since, as long as we both shall live, and then for eternity after that.

He is everything, my whole universe. And once I pull back to look at him, he’s so resplendent in his mussed hair and flushed, naked skin that I could cry.

Check that: it turns out I _am_ crying, I’m just not sure when it started.

My husband’s eyebrows knit together. Drawing me in again, he uses his halcyon lips to kiss away the salty wetness from my cheeks.

“You’re even more beautiful now than you were that night,” I whisper to him when he’s done. The knot in my throat keeps me from speaking any louder, but my embarrassing tone of wonder still leaks out even in that weak murmur.

Spock works his free hand out from where it has tangled in my hair and he touches my face with such reverence and caring that I can hardly feel his fingertips. When he strokes one of those spots he connects with for a mind meld—which he’s steadily helped me develop over the years to be sensitive to his psychic reaching—I feel that his index and middle fingers are joined, kissing my skin in a painfully tender _ozh’esta_.

Our mouths and tongues are dancing with one another again before my head can catch up. He’s kissing my lips with his own, the back of my neck with his _ozh’esta_ , and my palm in our sustained _el’ru’esta_. No doubt feeling that I’m wondering how I can bear it all, he hooks his legs around my thighs and gives a tug.

I lower myself back down, giving him most of my weight since I know he enjoys taking it (and my elbow definitely appreciates it). We gyrate together in perfect synch for several minutes, the heat and the gentle urgency of my soulmate chasing away all awareness of my body’s needs. All I know in these moments is how in love I am with every half-Vulcan-half-Human molecule of him. I want him simply to _consume_ me, to absorb me into himself, to let me become one with his entire being so I never have to be separate from him ever again.

Spock’s melodious laugh comes through our bond. _I know, darling_ , he chuckles, and the endearment sends another rush of blood draining straight from my heart to my groin. _If it was within my power, I would have intertwined our very atoms the first time I felt the touch of your hand or the softness of your lips._

Somehow, both of my hands have abandoned the important work they were doing and glued themselves to my lover’s neck. I’m not certain when I allowed my attention to be so diverted, but my neglect of Spock’s body is unacceptable. I release his mouth and begin to shift onto my elbow once more when he grabs my wrists and guides my touch right back down to his clavicle.

He gives me a stern look which I understand as an instruction to stay put.

“As long as we are making facetious apologies,” he says, “I regret to inform you that I find myself in desperate need of another massage.”

His long arms and legs act in tandem to yank my briefs the rest of the way off with unfathomable haste. Then his feet are seductively crawling up my calves, dragging me close until my all-too-excited penis finally makes contact with his.

In order not to lose it completely and ejaculate all over him right then and there, I curl my toes in a painful clench and focus on drawing the covers up to my shoulders. The tent-like bubble the sheets create around us where they fall away from me is humid, cozy, and safe, like a custom-spun cocoon just big enough for the two of us to move within it as one.

Fencing Spock in with my arms, I settle on top of him for a last reprieve before we really get going. Our throbbing, pulsating erections cuddle up to each other almost as if they had magnets attracting them from the inside. His wetness is paradoxically soothing and stimulating all at once.

“ _K’diwa_ ,” I say, puzzled by my bondmate’s request—demand?—for a repeat of the treatment I thought I’d done a fairly thorough job with already today. “Of course I don’t mind doing it again, but… we just spent half the morning…?” I trail off when he begins shaking his head at me, a fond little smile gracing his lips.

“Oh, Jim, not that kind of massage,” he says, his timbre implying that I’m being unusually naïve, even for me. Rising up to speak directly into my ear, his chest hair tickles my stomach and nipples, making me want to scream with joy for more, so much more. In a husky whisper, he clarifies, “ _Inside_ , sweetheart.”

Unprepared for the thrill he’s just given me, I bury my face in his neck, biting down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out or making a mess of both of us so soon.

Spock curls his legs around my waist, and leads my still-sticky hand down between our pelvises. He re-wets my fingers with the lubrication pouring from the glands of his sheath and shaft. Then he’s pushing my hand down to his underside, and he only lets go when I’ve gotten my bearings and started to rub his shy, tightened entrance in the hopes of relaxing it as quickly as possible.

“Mmm, _yes_ , Captain,” he purrs, sending my ego to a whole other plain of transcendence. “I need your skilled hands… your healing massage… inside me…” As his mouth runs with his delightfully risqué stream of consciousness, he occupies his hands at my sex: he teases my corona, traces the veins along my length, and even gives my testes a mini-massage of their own. “Yes, Jim… massage me where we both wanted you to before you left me that night… when you kissed my forehead and my hand… when I pretended to fall asleep to get you that much closer to my bed…”

“You depraved little Vulcan, you!” I say after swooning at his admission. Composing myself, I steal a kiss before accelerating the coaxing motions of my fingertips. “You never told me you were awake for all of that. You’re such a tease…”

He chuckles as I nibble all over his neck and chest. “I assumed you put that much together when we began our courtship,” he says around the cutest yips and gasps, “since we both spent that entire evening— _mmh!_ —unintentionally sharing our thoughts and desires with one another over the— _ah!_ —the connection we hadn’t yet realized had already formed between our minds.”

“For Gorn’s sake, you know how thick I am when it comes to these things.” Despite my words and my play-bites at his pert nipple, I know he can hear the amusement in my voice and feel the lust spiking in my nervous system.

“I _do_ know how thick you are,” he says, wrapping his hand around my burning penis and giving it an agonizing squeeze. “And I’m quite ready for your thickness to provide me the massage I am due.” He petulantly transfers more of his body’s secretions to my erection, dousing the tip and slicking up the first several centimeters of my shaft before attempting to guide it down to his anus.

“Easy with that!” I say, hissing and recoiling a little at the unexpected onslaught.

Spock friskily wrestles with me, trying to get my wet fingers out of the way by using my own phallus as a makeshift battering ram. He grins like an imp when he lets me capture his wrist and pull my organ free from his hand.

“Naughty kitty, no!” I jokingly scold—and he devilishly arches his back so his chest puffs out. He looks just like our cat proudly displaying her belly when she’s been discovered scratching up the end of the sofa. “You’re so impatient. And you are _not_ ready yet, mister, I still can’t even get my first finger…”

“Jim,” he says, his voice sounding mysterious all of a sudden. He’s turned his head to look out our wall of windows.

“What is it, honey?” I ask, running my moist palm in a long, calming sweep down his tummy. I take the opportunity while he’s distracted to place a quiet kiss on his forehead, petting his hair aside with my dry hand.

“The sun is coming out,” Spock murmurs. He’s right—for a brief moment, a beam of light illuminates the carpet along the windows and the balcony door, bringing all the colors and warmth back into our apartment. His whole body curls around me instinctively in his preoccupied but unmistakably happy fascination.

“Mm, of course it is,” I mutter into his skin, kissing him here and there all across his brow.

When he refocuses on my face, his eyes are wide, glittering, and full of curiosity. I feel the throbbing of his sex against my own as he wiggles his hips underneath me.

“You always make the sun shine,” I say, hovering my lips over his, “when you let me make love to you.”

At that, my husband tightens every limb around me in a death grip of an embrace, and he thrusts his way up into our kiss so vehemently that he’s actually _hanging_ off of me.

“Unfortunately,” I add when he lets me breathe, “if the air clears up, I’ll have to go to the grocery store.” I grin cheekily at him to signal that I’m mostly joking, unless he’s willing to accompany me to do the shopping since I’m flooded with a need not to let him out of my sight at any point in the foreseeable future.

“You are _not_ to leave this bed until or unless I authorize it.” My bondmate is exquisite—stick-thin and heavy, but splendidly so—and his command tone strikes every chord in me until I think I might collapse from the symphonic cacophony of love and joy he wracks me with. “If the air does clear up, however,” he goes on, “I would very much like to forego our shopping in favor of having a… pasta picnic with you in our favorite grove of trees at Marshall’s Beach.” His eyes twinkle with mischief.

“Unngh, you bad boy,” I say, devouring him with my gaze and not even trying to fight the smile breaking across my face. “Guess I’ll pray for sunny skies after all.”

“Indeed,” is his dismissive response. He seizes me in yet another searing kiss, lewdly sucking on my tongue and making my legs threaten to give out.

Lowering him to the bed again while I still have the strength to do so with dignity, I caress Spock’s outer thigh where it’s hitched over my midsection. My heart pounds as his purring resumes and his eyes darken, looking me over and considering our position. I simply smile and wait, content to stare at him and pet him forever.

“James,” he says at last, sounding eminently practical, “there _is_ still a substantial amount of fog covering our city.”

I laugh and kiss him again, just a peck this time as I secure his legs on my hips. “Let’s just see what we can do about that, shall we?”

“ _Ah, kahs’khior’i_ ,” Spock moans, guiding my hand between us. “ _Estuhl’uh nash-veh kwon-sum_ … _Hafa’uh k’nash-veh_ … _k’svi nash-veh_ … _kwon-sum_ …”

“I intend to, my Vulcan angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vulcan translations:
> 
>  _adun_ = husband  
>  _ashal-veh_ = darling, beloved  
>  _ha’su_ = angel (in my head canon, one of Kirk’s favored pet names for Spock)  
>  _k’diwa_ = beloved; shortened form of _k’hat’n’dlawa_ , “one who is half of my heart and soul”  
>  _weht_ = more  
>  _Dzheims_ = James, i.e. Kirk’s given name pronounced with a Vulcan accent (transliterating the Vulcan _dzh_ sound for the “J” phonetic of English/Standard, e.g. _Dzhefris_ = Jefferies, _Raidzhelsu_ = Rigellian, etc.) (I head canon that Spock saying Kirk’s name with his native accent _really_ turns Jim on :))  
>  _lok_ = penis  
>  _estuhl_ = to touch  
>  _‘uh_ = suffix used to form imperative  
>  _nash-veh_ = me, I  
>  _**Estuhl’uh lok t’nash-veh_ = Touch my penis  
>  _katra_ = spirit/soul; the living essence of a Vulcan; a combination of soul and memory  
>  _ah_ = yes  
>  _kahs’khior’i_ = shooting star (in my head canon, one of Spock’s favored pet names for Kirk)  
>  _kwon-sum_ = forever; always; for all time  
>  _hafa’uh_ = stay  
>  _k’_ = with, by  
>  _k’svi_ = within, inside  
>  _**Estuhl’uh nash-veh kwon-sum_ = Touch me forever  
>  _**Hafa’uh k’nash-veh… k’svi nash-veh… kwon-sum_ = Stay with me… within me… forever
> 
> *Translations taken from the Vulcan Language Dictionary at https://www.starbase-10.de/vld/ and korsaya.org
> 
> **These are phrases I attempted to construct on my own, based on the VLD and korsaya.org resources, so take them with several grains of salt as I am not fluent in Vulcan. If I’ve completely butchered the grammar and/or vocabulary, please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> The Vulcan Daily ([speakvulcantome](https://speakvulcantome.tumblr.com/)) on Tumblr had [this extremely helpful/crucial post](https://speakvulcantome.tumblr.com/post/182414092103/hello-may-i-ask-how-you-translated-let-it-go) that I ran across while researching Vulcan grammar for the title of this story. They explained Vulcan imperative structure in a way that I could understand, so I’m very grateful!!
> 
> [Here’s an interesting little article](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodResourceCenter/sexually-arousing-smells-pumpkin/story?id=12226715#.TxVFDJh5n0c) I drew from a couple times on a study regarding scents that are most sexually arousing to (Human ;)) men.
> 
> By the by, the portion of Kirk’s worried/frantic wonderings about Vulcan opinions of homosexual romance (or any relationship that doesn’t involve heterosexual male + female reproductive intentions) was essentially inspired by the gorgeously-described sensibilities and diversity valued on Vulcan in [“A Logical Form of Relationship”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126971) by the lovely [weirdlittlestories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeirdLittleStories/pseuds/WeirdLittleStories). It’s short and sweet, and honestly one of my Absolute Favorite K/S Stories Ever™. Please check it out if you have the chance, it’s a gem!!
> 
> One last GIGANTIC THANK YOU to my amazing artist and collaborator, marlinspirkhall—please see their [Tumblr Art Post](https://marlinspirkhall.tumblr.com/post/621285980052275200/estuhluh-nash-veh-touch-me) and/or their [AO3 Art Post](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792658) to give them ALL the LOVE!!!!! (Tell them I sent you. ;)) 💛💙💛💙💛💙
> 
> ((Psst! Hey! Come space out with me on Tumblr! I’m [jimkirkachu](https://jimkirkachu.tumblr.com/) over there and I always love to make more Trek and K/S friends!))

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art For] Estuhl'uh Nash-Veh (Touch Me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792658) by [Marlinsart (Marlinspirkhall)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinsart)




End file.
